.0* • •"•♦ *b -*$> 








^ ^ 



SEEMONS 

BY 

REV. WILLIAM MORLEY PUNSHON 

TO ^HICH IS PEEFIXED 

A PLEA EOR CLASS-MEETINGS, 

AND 

AN INTRODUCTION BY REY. WILLIAM H. MILBURN. 



NEW YOEK: 
DERBY & JACKSON, 498 BROADWAY. 




$_^~ ** C 






Ebtered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

DERBY & JACKSON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of 
New York. 



W. H. Tinson, Stereotyper. Geo. Russell & Co., Printers. 



CONTENTS. 



♦ 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION by Rev. W. H. Milburn, v 

PRELIMINARY PLEA FOR CLASS-MEETINGS, 21 

I.— MEMORIES OF THE WAT, 43 

II.— THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY, . . . . 67 

III.— THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT, 93 

IV.— SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD, 119 

V.— THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST, 139 

VI.— ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST, 162 

VII.— THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE, 183 

VIII.— THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR, 205 

IX.— THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH, LIFE, PROSPECTS AND 

DUTY, 227 

X.— THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST, 249 

XI.— THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION, 276 

XII.— THE PROPHET OF HOREB— HIS LIFE AND ITS 

LESSONS, 297 



INTEODUCTION 



On a bright sunshiny morning (and such were strangely- 
frequent in London in the summer of 1857) I drove from my 
lodgings, Little Ryder street, St. James', two or three miles 
in a southwesterly direction to Brixton Hill Wesleyan Chapel. 
The edifice was that day to be dedicated to the worship of 
Almighty God, and the preacher on the occasion was the 
Rev. William Moelev Punshon. I had heard much of 
him, and was naturally desirous to listen to one who was 
called the most eloquent of living Wesleyan preachers. 

As I reached the chapel in advance of the time for com- 
mencing the service, I entered the vestry, where I was 
introduced, among others, to the preacher I had come to 
hear. He seemed a man about five feet ten inches in height, 
rather inclined to corpulency, for one of his age (not then, 
I should say, above thirty-four), with by no means a strik- 
ing or expressive face when in repose, and possessed of a 
voice rather husky and not at all prepossessing. 

His dress was that of all Wesleyan ministers in England, 
closely approaching the style of the clergy of the estab- 
lished church — the invariable white neck-tie surmounting 
the uniform of black. The appointed hour arrived, and 
we entered the chapel. 

Vii 



Till INTRODUCTION. 

The prayers of the church of England — excepting the 
Litany — were read by the superintendent of the circuit 
from a desk on one side of the chancel. Mr. Punshon then 
mounted a desk on the other side of the chancel, gave out 
a hymn, and offered a brief extemporaneous prayer. 

His reading was not at all impressive, and I began to 
wonder whether, indeed, he could be an orator. In truth, 
I had been so often disappointed that I had almost come to 
regard a reputation for eloquence as primd facie evidence 
against a man's possessing it, and I was tempted to think 
in this case, that I was once more befooled. The preacher 
took his text and proceeded with the discourse. A 
brief exegetical introduction was followed by the announce- 
ment of the points he meant to treat. The arrangement 
of the sermon was textual, methodical and Wesleyan. 
The English take far less latitude in such matters than 
we. The Wesleyans are Wesleyans indeed, imbued with 
the spirit and almost adhering to the letter of our Great 
Founder. Well-nigh every sermon has its three heads, and 
each head its three subdivisions, and at the conclusion of the 
third " thirdly," comes a close, searching, and practical appli- 
cation. This style seems to be considered almost indispens- 
able to orthodoxy, and forms a striking contrast to the large, 
often latitudinarian, and frequently helter skelter freedom of 
style allowed in this country, where all manner of truth, 
and even untruth, is preached from any text that may be 
selected, under the plea that the style is " topical." 

The form of the English pulpit obliges the preacher to ad- 
here to a pulpit manner. It is modelled upon the shape of 
the little wooden boxes we see in Roman Catholic churches 
in this country, affording room for one person only — access 



INTKODUCTION. IX 

to it being gained by a long flight of winding steps, and 
when you have toiled to the dizzy height, you find yourself 
overlooking the galleries, and perched, perhaps twenty 
feet above the floor. Not a little self-control must be 
practised by the preacher, and he is compelled, whether 
he will or not, to pay a good deal of attention to the 
laws of gravitation, and other decorous regulations, or 
the stern penalty of a tumble may be enforced upon him. 

The platform of this country (for our pulpits are nothing 
more), in its slight elevation above the floor, its nearness to 
the people, its susceptibility to impression from the audi- 
ence, and the vantage-ground it affords the preacher for 
imbuing the hearers with his own sympathies, is a great 
advance upon the English desk, and a near approach to the 
ambo of the early Church. The difference, as to the stand- 
ing-ground of the preachers of the two countries, is signi- 
ficant — almost symbolic — of the difference of their styles. 

The English seem to fancy, that our method, in its 
reach after the people, its disloyalty to technical rule, 
its range of illustration, and its disuse of a strict theo- 
logical phraseology, as well as in its free adoption of the 
language of common life, borders upon a reprehensible 
looseness. 

To the American, on the other hand, the close adherence 
to models, the almost single variation between a dogmatic 
and hortatory style, and the employment of a limited range 
of words, not so much Scriptural as conventional, make the 
English pulpit appear formal. No doubt each could learn 
something of advantage from the other ; and it seemed to 
me, that Mr. Punshon occupied the enviable position of 
standing midway between the two, with many of the 

1* 



X INTRODUCTION. 

advantages of both. Pie is systematic, yet untrammelled, 
and while technical in his arrangement, he is still free and 
varied in illustration. Confining himself to the legiti- 
mate themes of the pulpit, he at the same time does not 
despise the use of general literature. His aim seems to be 
to make men Christians — either to convert them from sin, or 
to establish them in holiness, not to teach them political 
economy, to educate them in sesthetics, to afford them 
brilliant disquisitions in metaphysical science, or to enforce 
on them the flattering assurance, that the private soul (that 
is, the essential me) is higher and grander than society, 
state, church, law, or Scripture. 

The staple of his discourses, when I heard him, concerned 
man's spiritual and eternal welfare, and did not consist in 
flowers, stars, breezes or clouds. I should say that he is 
better read in the writings of St. Paul and St. John, than 
in those of the Gnostics, and that he holds the canon of 
Scripture to be binding upon men, as a rule of faith and 
practice. 

As to politics, I have a suspicion (but I can only state it 
as a suspicion, for I heard him say nothing on the subject), 
that he prefers the English Revolution of 1688, to the 
French Revolution of IV 8 9 ; and that he holds the powers 
that be, are ordained of God, and not of the Devil ; and 
therefore, if he taught anything on the subject, that he 
would teach fealty to the constitution of the land in which 
he lives, loyalty to the law, obedience to constituted 
authority, as the duty of every good citizen, and not, that 
insubordination and revolution are the crowning glories of 
every regenerate soul. He is liberal, but his liberality is 
not the equivalent of a contempt for orthodoxy ; and while 



INTKODUCTIOS". XI 

soroe of his countrymen may esteem him a progressive, I 
hardly think his progressiveness consists in the recently 
expounded doctrine of consistency, " be true to yourself to- 
day — no matter what you said or did yesterday " — that is 
to say, progress and the weathercock are one and the same 
thing. 

As Mr. Punshon advanced in his discourse on that pleas- 
ant June morning, an occasional emphasis, applied with 
judgment, betokened the practical speaker ; and the finish 
of his sentences betrayed thorough preparation. As he 
warmed to his work, quickening at the same time the gait 
of his articulation, you found him gaming a strong hold 
not only upon your attention, but upon your feelings ; and 
you discovered that underneath the ample and rather loose 
folds of adipose tissue with which his outer man is in- 
vested, there are great stores of electrical power. He pos- 
sesses that attribute indispensable to the orator, for which 
we have no better name than magnetic. You are rooted 
as by a spell, and surrender for a time the guidance of your 
own thoughts. You have dropped the helm of your mind, 
for a more skillful pilot has for the nonce taken your place 
at the tiller. 

Occasionally, you find the speaker's power over you 
going to such lengths as to control your respiration, and 
you breathe as he breathes, or as he gives you liberty. Who- 
ever has known the delicious pain of a long, deep inhalation 
■ — half a sigh of relief, half a welcome of the outer world 
for the time forgotten — while listening to a speaker with 
such rapt earnestness that every faculty of mind and sense 
is concentrated in the one act of hearing, has felt what ora- 
tory is. He has felt it, but can he describe it ? He might 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

as well attempt to describe the thrill of love or rapture. I 
doubt not, Mr. Punshon has showed many people what ora- 
tory is, and made them to know the power of the orator ; 
but I question much if he can teach them the power of his 
art, or how to analyze and define it. It is not the power of 
intellect, for I have seen and heard nothing from him 
extraordinary as an intellectual production. Jt does not lie 
in his taste — I am not sure it that would bear the test of 
rigid criticism. It is not in the exhibition of stores of learn- 
ing; his life has been too busy and practical, to enable 
him to gain great stock of lore. It is not in the tricks of 
a charlatan or the skill of an actor, for Mr. Punshon is 
a sincere, devout and godly man. The charm of eloquence 
retreats from the scrutiny of analysis as life retires from 
the knife of the anatomist. 

Before he has reached his major " thirdly," it is all over 
with your independent consciousness ; you have yielded at 
discretion and are the prisoner of his feeling. I am half in- 
clined to believe that his own intellect is in the same plight, 
and that memory acts as the warder of the brain, under 
writ from the lordly soul. You have thrown criticism to 
the dogs; your ear has exchanged itself /or an eye; the 
bone and flesh of your forehead become delicately thin, as 
the laminae of the cornea, and your brain seems endowed 
with the power of the iris. You enjoy the ecstasy of vision, 
and as the speaker stops you recover yourself enough 
to feel that you have had an apocalyptic hour. 

It seems to me, that the true measure of eloquence is 
found, not so much in what is said as in what is sug- 
gested ; not so much in the speaker's ability to convey to 
you an idea, as to suffuse you with tbf» glow of a senti- 



INTRODUCTION. X1U 

ment ; not so much in the truth which is uttered, as in the 
soul behind the truth, of which you become, for the time, 
a sharer. 

Mr. Punshon is much more of an orator than any man I 
heard in England. In society he is simple, quiet, and ge- 
nial ; his excellent good sense, and unaffected piety deliver 
him from the snares of egotism, and the foolish weakness 
of self-conceit. The chalice of praise turns many a great 
man's head. The goblet which the English public has 
offered to Mr. Punshon is huge and brimming ; but if the 
contents have affected him, I did not discover it. I have 
an idea, that he gives close and scrupulous heed to the 
Apostle's admonition : " Let no man among you think 
more highly of himself than he ought to think, but let him 
think soberly, righteously, according as God has dealt to 
every man the measure of faith." 

Mr. Punshon is not as robust as he looks. He is not able 
to study closely more than three hours at a time, and fre- 
quently not more than that out of the twenty-four hours. 
He prepares himself for the rostrum and pulpit with the 
most scrupulous and exhaustive care. I should say that the 
greater part of his sermons and lectures are committed to 
memory, and delivered almost word for word, as they were 
beforehand composed. His recollection is, therefore, at 
once quick and tenacious. This plan, while it insures a 
higher average of public performance and saves him from 
many mortifying failures, at the same time shuts him out 
from the ground of highest power. 



" Mr. Pimshon was born (I now quote from reliable 
authority) on the 29th of May, 1824, and successfully passed 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

his examination for the Wesleyan ministry iu the year 1845. 
He is a native of Doncaster, and is related, on the mother's 
side, to the Morleys of that town, and since of Hull, Sir 
Isaac Morley being his uncle. The only child of his parents, 
he early displayed that wonderful memory for which he is 
now so remarkably distinguished, and a propensity to store 
it with facts which rarely interest mere boys. At the Don- 
caster Grammar School, where he was educated, he is said 
not to have discovered any surprising proficiency ; but 
when still a child he was able to name nearly all the mem- 
bers of the House of Commons, with the places for which 
they sat, and the color of their politics. 

" In early life he associated himself with the TVesleyan 
Methodists, to which religious body his family belonged ; 
but public affairs continued to be his ruling passion, and 
the most surprising thing is, that his oratory, instead of 
adorning the Methodist chapel, should not have been electri- 
fying the chapel of St. Stephen. When his grandfather and 
uncles removed to their establishment in Hull, he was placed 
in their counting-house as junior clerk. He may have had 
talents for business, but his inclination ran in another direc- 
tion. During the three years that he was supposed to be 
making out invoices and footing up ledgers, he was absorbed 
in newspapers ; and the only account he cared to keep was 
of the way in which the representatives of the people voted 
in Parliament. 

"In the debates nobody was better posted up. The 
temptation of a daily newspaper was irresistible ; and while 
the other clerks were deep in figures, he was culling figures 
of speech from the orators of the Reformed Parliament — 
watching the opening genius of Gladstone and Macaulay, 
noting the maturer excellences of Peel and Palmerston, and 
marking the finest flights of Shiel and O'Connell for his 
own. The predilections of a young politician are seldom 
of much importance ; but it so happened that young Pun- 
shon's devotion to newspaper studies threw him into the 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

society of three young men who were earnest disciples of 
the then newly born conservative opinions of Sir Robert 
Peel and his adherents, and who held weekly meetings to 
strengthen each other in their political faith. Once a month 
one of them read a paper to the rest on a given subject ; 
and though not more numerous than the celebrated knights 
of the thimble in Tooley street, they called themselves " The 
Menticultural Society." Two of the three survive, one 
being a Wesleyan minister, and the other a clergyman of 
the Established Church. In these weekly discourses and 
monthly lectures, Mr. Punshon first distinguished himself as 
possessed of those faculties which have made him eminent. 
.Nor did he and his associates confine themselves to politics ; 
for there is in existence a small volume of poetry, which 
they published conjointly, and to which Mr. Punshon con- 
tributed a piece entitled " The Orphan," of considerable 
promise. About the same time he received, under the 
ministry of the Rev. Samuel Romilly Hall, those impressions, 
which resulted in his religious conversion. He then became 
a Sunday-school teacher, and subsequently a local preacher. 
He began to preach when he was eighteen years of age, and 
exhibited much ability in the pulpit. His first attempt was 
made at Ellerby, near Hull, and it was so successful as to 
cause the sermon to live in the memory of at least some 
who heard it, for they talked about it years afterward, 
when Mr. Punshon visited the place. Under such circum- 
stances there could be little doubt that his vocation was not 
in the counting-house. But still he was kept in the com- 
mercial circle, for from his relatives in Hull he was sent to 
an uncle at Sunderland, to follow up the pursuit on which 
lie had entered. 

" But the books in which he delighted were neither ledger 
nor day-books. His refined fancy and polished taste made 
him an ardent admirer of the sublime and beautiful in lite- 
rature, and at the same time his religious views led him to 
employ his talents more than ever in the preaching of the 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

Gospel ; and as certain rivers are lost in morasses, we lose 
sight of his commercial career somewhere among the coal- 
pits and iron- works of the North. 

"During these events he had been bereaved of both pa- 
rents ; and his grandfather, at length convinced that secular 
business was not his vocation, made liberal arrangements 
for his being trained for the ministry in the Wesleyan Insti- 
tution, after a preliminary course of instruction at the house 
of his uncle, the Rev. Benjamin Clough, at Deptford. 

" There, however, he did not long remain ; it being found, 
probably either that his genius was ill-suited to the res- 
traints of an academical course, or that by self-culture, and 
the help of his ministerial relative, he had attained a profi- 
ciency which, with talents such as his, superseded a more 
formal training. In the spring of 1845 a secession of the 
parishioners from the Episcopal Church at Morden, Kent, 
formed the nucleus of a Wesleyan church in that town, and 
Mr. Punshon was invited to accept the pastoral charge of 
the seceders. He complied with the request, and under his 
ministry their numbers so greatly increased that a commo- 
dious chapel was erected, and always well filled. It was 
only for a short time, however, that he remained in this 
place, for in the autumn of the same year the Conference, 
under whose jurisdiction the Morden church seems to have 
come, sent him to Whitehaven, where he resided two years, 
and attracted large congregations. From thence, in 1847, 
he was removed to the city of Carlisle, and two years after- 
ward to Newcastle-on-Tyne. In both of these great centres 
of population Mr. Punshon at once acquired a worthy name, 
and became a mighty power for good, as well as at Sunder- 
land, Gateshead, Shields, and the other towns of the dis- 
trict, where he never had to preach or lecture to empty, or 
only partially occupied pews and benches. While stationed 
at Newcastle, being then in his twenty-fifth year, he mar- 
ried a daughter of Mr. Vicars, of Gateshead, a very esti- 
mable and highly accomplished lady, whose premature death 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

in 1858 threw the darkest shadow across Mr. Punshon's 
path, just when he had been appointed to a Metropolitan 
circuit, where enlarged usefulness and new honors awaited 
the gifted and ardent ambassador of Christ ; when most 
unwelcome, the King of Terrors came and took the angel 
of the pastor's home away to her sister spirits in glory. 

"From Newcastle Mr. Punshon was removed in 1851 to 
Sheffield, and thence to Leeds in 1855. It was while he was 
at Sheffield that the fame of the preacher became noised 
abroad ; and his services were soon in very frequent request 
for special sermons, and also for lectures. It was, we be- 
lieve, in the character of a lecturer that he appeared for the 
first time in London, some six or seven years ago. We well 
recollect the circumstance of his standing upon the platform 
of Exeter Hall to discourse to the members of the Young 
Men's Christian Association on the Prophet of Horeb. It 
was not, strictly speaking, a lecture ; but an oration of ex- 
treme brilliancy, suited in a high degree to captivate the 
minds and find its way to the affections of a youthful audi- 
ence ; and we never remember to have heard such rapturous 
applause as that with which the thousands there assembled 
greeted each glowing period. The whole of the oration 
was delivered memoriter, and with extraordinary fluency ; 
and such was the literal fidelity with which the speaker 
had followed the manuscript, which was either in his pocket, 
or at home, that when it shortly afterward appeared in 
print, it would have been difficult for the most retentive 
memory of the closest listener to have pointed out a sen- 
tence that the lecturer had not uttered. By this single 
performance Mr. Punshon established a Metropolitan repu- 
tation outside his own denomination, which was increased 
some two or three years afterward by his second lecture in 
Exeter Hall, before the same Association, on the Immortal 
Dreamer, John Bunyan ; and, more recently still, by that 
most masterly oration on the Huguenot, which tens of thou- 
sands in almost all parts of England have listened to with 



XV111 INTRODUCTION. 

unbounded delight. With one or two exceptions, perhaps, 
there is no living minister in this country possessed of so 
much popular power as Mr. Punshon. It is something 
wonderful and grand to witness the spell of his genius upon 
miscellaneous audiences of from three to five thousand peo- 
ple in St. James' Hall, Exeter Hall, or the provincial 
theatre, who have paid from a shilling to a half crown each 
for admission. Most people will probably prefer Mr. Pun- 
shon in character of a lecturer rather than that of a preacher. 
In the pulpit he is unquestionably a master, and only second 
to a very few preachers of the age ; but the platform fur- 
nishes a better sphere for the display of his varied abilities. 
In neither capacity does he give the people that w^hich has 
cost him nothing ; for so accurate, and elaborate is almost 
every sentence, and so appropriate and polished every illus- 
trative simile, that it may be confidently said he writes out 
and commits to memory every sermon and lecture that he 
delivers. Whatever he undertakes he does well. Whether 
it is in the preaching of an ordinary sermon in a Methodist 
chapel, or in the delivery of an ostensibly popular discourse 
in some great public building, or as taking part in the meet- 
ing of some benevolent or religious association, or as a lec- 
turer, occupying the rostrum before thousands of delighted 
hearers, he is always earnest, always energetic, always 
effective. 

" In a two hours' discourse upon such a theme as that of 
the history of France throughout the w T hole period of the 
Huguenot persecutions, ordinary and even very superior lec- 
turers would have considered a manuscript indispensable. 
But, not so Mr. Punshon. A few notes on some small cards 
held in the hand were all the prompting he required, when 
we heard him go through his magnificent address. He told 
that old story of persecution with an inspiriug eloquence 
that made men hold their breath while they listened, or 
burst forth into a tempest of applause. Vigorous, inven- 
tive, and impassioned, he adapted himself to the versatile 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

tastes of his auditory, not by any apparent effort, but by 
simplicity, and strength, by speaking right out the 
thoughts that were in him. He roused every passion, 
touched every emotion, and awakened every sympathy in 
the hearts of his hearers." 

With God's blessing Mr. Punshon has yet, according to 
the English standard, full thirty of his best years before him. 
May he have length of days and fullness of power, so that 
he shall continue to grow in favor with God and man, is 
the hearty wish of his friend, 

W. H. MlLBTJEN. 

Brooklyn, May 15th } 1860. 



PRELIMINARY PLEA. 



TABOE-, OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 



If any of you, dear friends, had been privileged to 
witness the scenes which once hallowed the summit of 
Tabor — if you had seen the Saviour baptized as the 
King of Glory — if you had " feared as you entered 
into the cloud" — if you had been a favored listener to 
that heavenly converse — if you had been thrilled, as 
Peter was, by the uplift! ngs of wondrous hope and un- 
foldings of gracious purpose, as " they spake of his de- 
cease which lie should accomplish at Jerusalem " — who 
of you could have withheld the deep-felt expression of 
gladness, " Lord, it is good to be here !" — who of you 
could have restrained the desire to build, upon that 
sacred spot, the " tabernacles" of remembrance and of 
rest ? 

Dear friends, there is yet an institution in whose ob- 
servance the humblest Christian talks with his Master, 
and with his Master's followers — that institution is the 
" assembling of ourselves together" for the purposes of 
church communion — there is yet a place upon earth 



21 



22 TABOR ; OK, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

where some relics of that excellent glory linger, where 
the experiences of that mount of blessing are not all 
forgotten — that place is a pious and properly conducted 
Class-Meeting. Many a time has the writer of this 
brief address felt its salutary influence, to gladden the 
soul in seasons of intensest trial, to encourage the fail- 
ing spirit in heavenward progress, to brace and nerve 
the mind for difficult duty ; and, with a grateful recol- 
lection of these, its Tabor-pleasures, he commends its 
advantages to you. "I believed, therefore have I 
spoken." 

"We do not claim for the Class-Meeting an essentially 
divine origin, although it would be difficult to doubt 
that an overruling Providence presided at its birth, 
and has kept it in operation until now. The mind, 
which devoutly remembers that with God there is 
nothing trivial, will readily acknowledge that when 
John Wesley, ministering merely to present necessities, 
and with no foresight of the future, called together at 
their own request " eight or ten persons in London" — 
there were in heaven an eye that marked and a love 
that blessed the deed. 

" A thing is great or little only to a mortal's thinking, 
It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle." 

Mark the tenor of the language which tells of the rise 
of the " United Societies," which, founded upon scrip- 
tural principles, have now expanded into a flourishing 
church : 



tabor; or, the class-meeting. 23 

" In the latter end of the year 1739, eight or ten per- 
sons came to me in London, who appeared to be deeply 
convinced of sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption. 
They desired (as did two or three more the next day) 
that I wonld spend some time with them in prayer, and 
advise them how to flee from the wrath to come, which 
they saw continually hanging over their heads. That 
we might have more time for this great work, I ap- 
pointed a day when they might all come together; 
which from henceforward they did every week, viz., 
on Thursday, in the evening. To these, and as many 
more as desired to join with them (for their number 
increased daily), I gave those advices from time to 
time which I judged most needful for them ; and we 
also concluded our meetings with prayer suited to their 
several necessities." 

How forcibly does this remind us of the days of 
Malachi, when " they that feared the Lord spake often 
one to another ', and the Lord hearkened and heard — 
and a Book of remembrance" — the Lord's class oooTc — 
" was written before him for them that feared the Lord, 
and that thought upon his name !" How vividly does 
it recall that union in prayer which gives it such a 
princely power ! " If two of you shall agree on earth 
as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
done for them of my Father which is in heaven." 
How does it bring before us the exhortations scattered 
through the whole compass of apostolic writing! 



24: TABOR J OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law 
of Christ;" — and especially how accordant is it with 
the confession of our faults one to another (not auricu- 
lar confession to a priest — that we abhor), which St. 
James enjoins. (Jas. v. 16.) If we have not direct 
Scripture command, we have Scripture permission, ap- 
proval, and usage ; and, while we are content that a 
Class-Meeting should be considered as prudential rather 
than authoritative, we hold to the persuasion that it has 
been a means of grace, which, perhaps beyond all 
others of a supplemental character, has been signally 
honored by the blessing of God. 

You, as hearers of our ministry, are doubtless aware 
that membership in one of these Class-Meetings is in- 
dispensable to constitute union with Methodism, and 
that those only, who statedly attend these seasons of 
Christian fellowship, are " accredited and rightful com- 
municants of our Church." Writing as Methodists, 
we condemn not other sections of the church universal. 
It may not be their vocation. They certainly do not 
prize it as their privilege. For ourselves, however, for 
the benefit of our own family, we are free to confess 
an ardent attachment in this matter to the " good ways" 
of our fathers. The Class-Meeting is storied of old. 
It is associated with our traditional and sacred records 
of the master spirits of early Methodism — those large- 
hearted men "of whom the world was not worthy." 
It was to them as the blest Elim of palms and fount- 
ains to the desert wayfarer; and such is the sanctity 



25 

of affection with which we regard it, that it compels 
the prayer, not with bated breath, but with the loud 
voice of earnest entreaty ; — God forbid the day should 
ever dawn when the Class-Meeting shall cease to be as 
an organized system of testimony, the badge of mem- 
bership in the Methodist branch of the Church of 
Christ. 

Let us be guarded here. We do not believe, nor do 
we affirm, that connection with the Class-Meeting is 
necessarily an indication of piety, nor of that right 
state of heart, which is acceptable in the sight of God. 
There may be — there probably are — numbers amongst 
us of whom we are "in doubt," and over whose de- 
fective consistency we mourn. It is not surprising, 
when there were "carnal walkers" in the Corinthian 
church, and even a Judas amongst the twelve. But 
where is there an equal vigilance to prevent -the re- 
cognition of improper persons as members? In what 
church in Christendom are there manifested greater 
fidelity and solemnity in matters of experience and 
practice? The charge of encouraging mixed fellow- 
ship, which has been so injuriously cast upon our minis- 
ters, is unwarranted and untrue. That our only re- 
quirement is " a desire to flee from the wrath to come," 
is certain. But what does this mean ? How is it ma- 
nifested? It is not the careless confession, in which 
there is no heart — -nor the emotion of the man, who 
repents to-night and sins again to-morrow — nor yet 
the mere feeling of remorse, the Judas-like penitence, 

2 



which " worketh death." There must be " repentance 
toward God" — the deep and abiding penitence — the 
strong conviction of personal guilt and danger — the 
"broken heart," which is God's chosen sacrifice — the 
godly sorrow, which chastens the entire character — 
the whole of the emotions comprehended in the ex- 
pressive word — contrition. None, in the judgment of 
our church — as embodied in her inimitable Rules — 
sincerely feel this desire but they who bring forth its 
" fruits meet for repentance" — the crushing sense of 
ingratitude — the careful avoidance of evil — the earnest 
inquiry after good — the submissive search for truth — 
and the restless anxiety which refuses to be satisfied 
without the experience of its power. None but these, 
therefore, are interested in this address. Do not mis- 
take us. We invite you on the assumption — and that 
assumption is indispensable — and that assumption is 
all that is indispensable — that you are thus desirous to 
"flee from the wrath to come." TVe are jealous of 
accessions that may pollute its purity. The careless, 
and the profane, and the trifling, and the selfish — 
alas ! that we have such hearers ! — our invitation 
passes by: Dearly as we wish their welfare, we dare 
not invite them, in their present state, amongst us. 
" They have no part nor lot in the matter." But we 
believe there are thousands of our hearers in different 
parts of the land, whose hearts God hath touched — 
who are hopeful and promising as to religious 
impression, and who manifest a ceaseless concern 



TABOE ; OK, THE CLASS-MEETING. 27 

for their souls ; and it is to tliem we make our 
appeal. 

Dear friends, those of you that are in such a case, 
to this membership we invite you. We have watched 
for you with eager solicitude. We have yearned over 
you with a pastor's yearning. Upon your spiritual 
state we have expended many an anxious thought, for 
your spiritual welfare we have breathed many a fer- 
vent prayer. We rejoice to see you in the sanctuary, 
but we would have you glad us with your presence at 
our family festivals. We see you standing at the 
threshold — we wish you to cluster round the hearth- 
stone and to be warmed at the fire. Perhaps you have 
not adequately considered the advantages of this in- 
valuable fellowship. Will you lend us your attention 
for awhile to a brief enumeration ? 

I. The Class-Meeting induces Self -examination. — 
Thoughtlessness is the great sin and inveterate habit of 
the world. The natural man presents the " remarkable 
spectacle of a soul afraid of itself, afraid to stay with 
itself, alone, still and attentive." He may, perhaps, 
have parleyed sometimes with his immortal spirit, after 
the manner of some lordly nobleman speaking to an old 
servant of his house : " Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be 
merry ;" or, haply some adventurous one set out with 
the fixed intention of visiting his heart's secret cham- 
bers, but his feelings were like those of one who entered 
a gloomy and long-deserted mansion. To his disor- 



28 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETIXG. 

dered imagination strange tremors shook the arras, 
unearthly echoes sounded from the stair, apparitions 
met the straining eye-ball upon every landing — 

" For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted !" 

and he retired affrighted, with the big, cold drops upon 
his brow, and it must be a powerful motive that will 
tempt him into those chambers again. Nay, the Lord's 
accusation against his ancient people is chargeable to a 
great extent upon his people now, " My people do not 
consider." How apt is the Christian, the heir of a 
nobler life, the professor of a living faith, to neglect 
the examination of himself! The countless activities 
of this utilitarian age have been all temptations, to 
which his busy spirit has been but too prone to yield. 
The engrossing influence of business, the onward march 
of intellect, the absorbing strife of politics, even the 
enterprises of religious philanthropy, have all, in turn, 
contributed most sadly to hinder the practice of self- 
communion. The active has banished the reflective ; 
and it is to be feared that there are professors of reli- 
gion, who strangely reckon all the moments spent upon 
themselves as so much wasted time. 

Wordsworth has entered his indignant protest against 
the intrusion of a railway to disturb the serenities of 
Grasmere and Eydal. Oh, for some spiritual laureate 



TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-J£EETING. 29 

— some sweet singer in Israel, to decry the multi- 
plied excitements which tramp and rattle through the 
offended mind! My friends, the Class-Meeting will 
" lead you beside these still w r aters." !No right-minded 
and devotional spirit dares enter it without some kind 
of self inquiry — some examination of himself — " whe- 
ther he be in the faith." During the week, it may be, 
when the strife of conrpetition waxed fierce, and the 
race of human pursuits was going vigorously on, your 
thoughts were hurried into the midst of them, until 
they were bewildered even to exhaustion ; but now the 
Class-Meeting is at hand, and the mind retires into its 
sanctuary, and communes with itself and its God. It 
is like the court-day of the soul, when the steward con- 
science takes cognizance of all the tenants, and brings 
them respectively beneath their Master's eye. How 
searching that inquiry ! How hallowed that commu- 
nion! "Another week of my probation has fled. 
What record has it borne? What blessings has it scat- 
tered from its wings ? What deliverances have I expe- 
rienced ? What battles have I w T on ? What have 
been my omissions, heart-wanderings, sins ? Am I 
holier, more spiritually-minded ? Have I a nobler 
scorn of the world ? a more earnest avarice for heaven % 
The heart must be the better for inquiries like these, 
made searchingly, and in the spirit of prayer. Then, 
perhaps, heavenly thoughts will troop upon us, like the 
descending visitants of Jacob's dream — and it may be — 
who knows ? that w r e may ' entertain angels unawares \ J 



30 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

or, better still, some kind-looking stranger may join us 
on our Emmaus-travel, and make ' our hearts burn 
within us as he talketh with us bj the way.' " These 
are no trifling blessings, and these the Class -Meeting 
indirectly procures, because it, in some sort, compels 
self-communion, and thus induces a habit which may 
be as powerful for good as former habits were powerful 
for evil. 

II. The Class-Meeting produces Gratitude. — Love — 
the love of gratitude — is the essence of religion — the 
first feeling of the regenerate soul. It springs electric 
in the mind of the believer at his first sight of Jesus. 
Authority cannot command it. Terror cannot frighten 
it into existence. All the thousand-fold appliances of 
worldly wisdom cannot create it. There must be per- 
ception of love in God — a sense of his good-will — a 
view of the crucified as well as of the cross before it be 
enkindled. " We love him oecause he first loved us." 
This feeling of gratitude is too deeply grateful for 
description. Language is but a mockery. Illustration 
fails. It is beyond a figure, and without a parallel. 
Who sees not the danger that an emotion like this, if 
hidden in the breast, should spend itself by its own 
continuity ? Gratitude is not like the mountain ava- 
lanche, which gains intensity from repression — it is 
rather like the fire, which imprisonment extinguishes — i 
or air, which, pure and free, is the refreshing breath of 
heaven; but, fouled by confinement, is the blast of 
pestilence and death. Contemplation upon God's 



TABOR ; OK, THE CLASS-MEETING. 31 

boundless love tends naturally to expression. " "While 
I was musing the fire burned, then spake I with my 
tongue." Now, the Class-Meeting furnishes the most 
appropriate occasion for this expression of praise. It is 
large enough to redeem from privacy, and not large 
enough to exclude the notion of a family, and it would 
be difficult to find a more legitimate sphere, in which 
the full heart may utter its thanks, unfold its hopes, 
and breathe its prayers. Nay, can there be gratitude 
without this thankful acknowledgment? Is there not 
enough in the dealings of your heavenly Father to 
compel it ? The grace which loved you from the begin- 
ning—the visitations of mercy which have lighted your 
path — the beams of promise that have shone upon 
your head — the kind heart that has borne with your 
wanderings — the beckoning hand which restored you 
when you went astray — are they not constraining you ? 
If we were permitted to anticipate the objection which 
the rebel heart sometimes whispers : "I cannot speak," 
might we not say — Ah ! friends, get the love of God 
shed abroad within you, and it wi]l fill your mouth with 
arguments. Wondrous is the power of this surpass- 
ingly mighty theme. It makes the lips of the stam- 
merer eloquent, and the heart of the diffident bold. 
Under its inspiring influence, knowledge kindles on the 
countenance — praise flows from the tongue — and the 
most timid and retiring are transported into the invita- 
tion of the Psalmist, " Come all ye that fear God, and 
I will declare what he hath done for my soul." 



32 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

III. The Class-Meeting recognizes brotherhood. — It is 
a mighty truth which God has written upon the uni- 
verse, and stamped enduringly npon the great heart of 
humanity, that " No man liveth to himself." The 
world is a vast mass of dependencies. The feeblest 
woman or the humblest peasant exerts an influence 
which must be felt in the great brotherhood of man- 
kind. It is a precious appointment of Providence, that 
it has, in some sense, made our very selfishness benevo- 
lent — that it has bound us, at the peril of losing our own 
enjoyments, to care for the necessities of others — and 
that it has extracted the most satisfying elements of 
public happiness from the joys and perils of individual 
lot. The heart, by a law of its constitution, must have 
something to which it can attach itself. Its emblems 
are the summer-tendril and the clasping ivy. It was 
never formed for the hermitage or the monastery — and 
you must do violence to all its excellent charities, 
before it will entirely denude itself of all objects of 
solicitude and love. The Class-Meeting here comes in 
to supply a great want of nature. It concentrates the 
feeling of brotherhood — prevents it from being frit- 
tered away in vague and sentimental generalities — and 
gives it a definite object and aim. If the church is the 
temple, the Class-Meeting is an inner and sacred inclo- 
sure. If the church is the populous city, the Class- 
Meeting is the united family, where love is throned in 
the heart and confidence nestles in the roof-tree. Every 
faithful leader will impress upon his flock, and every 



TABOR ; OK, THE CLASS-MEETING. 33 

devoted member will take care to feel, that, while the 
church at large claims his philanthropic sympathy and 
effort, to his own fellow-members he is to cherish the 
closer and deeper feelings of home. Here especially 
there are no orphans. a Whether one member suffer, 
all the members suffer with it ; or one member be 
honored, all the members rejoice with it." They are 
joined as in a commonwealth. " They love as bre- 
thren." Why join you not this heavenly communion ? 
Are you not, like the prodigal, in a far country, and, 
perhaps, if your pride would but confess it, inwardly 
pining for the " bread enough and to spare " of your 
Father's house at home ? Have you sufficiently consi- 
dered that in your present state, regarding you as 
travellers to another world, you are isolated, and — for- 
give the word — selfish — exhibiting a practical denial of 
all brotherly relationship, by remaining to wrestle with 
your enemies, and gain your heaven alone ? 

IV. The Glass-Meeting elicits Sympathy. — Good sense 
and rich exprerience are the fruits of intercourse. ~No 
man ever yet became either wise or holy by exclusively 
"communing with his own heart upon his bed." We 
have heard much lately on the tendency of seclusion 
to cherish the spirit of piety, and there are not wanting 
those who would revive in all their severity the monas- 
ticisms of past ages. Mistaken men! The sweet 
flowerets of Divine grace can rarely be acclimated to 
the damp soil of the convent; they are not like the 
sensitive mimosa, which shrinks even from the gentlest 

2* 



34: TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

handling, but rather, like the delicate heart's-ease, 
grateful for gracious dew-falls, and breathing zephyrs, 
and the blessed sun, and yet courting the culture and 
the companionship of man. Christianity is not an ima- 
ginative revelry upon great truths — it is an earnest 
endeavor to exemplify them. It is not contemplative 
pietism, it is unceasing labor. It is not an alien princi- 
ple, which has no sympathy with our nature, and is 
content with its distant and constrained submission — it 
is an all-pervasive element, shrined in the heart, and 
influencing benignly the whole of the character. 
" Knox," says Dr. Chalmers, " did not destroy the old 
Romish pulpits at the time of the Reformation ; he did 
better: he preached in them." Christianity does not 
annihilate a single passion — does not extinguish a single 
affection of our nature. It does better. It employs the 
former for its own noble purposes, and it fixes the latter 
where they may attach themselves, without fear of 
idolatry, even upon " things above." The passions of 
the Christian, therefore, are as strong — the affections of 
the Christian are as warm — as those of any man. The 
charities of life, and of love, and of home, flourish as 
endearingly in the mind of the Christian as anywhere, 
and he has that intense yearning for sympathy which 
characterizes universal man. Here again, the Class- 
Meeting supplies a great want of nature. It is composed 
a band of wayfarers, met for the express purpose of 
sympathizing with each other in the struggles and perils 
of their common journey. How often has it opened up 



TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 35 

a weekly heaven, amid the dull and clouded atmosphere 
of sinfulness and time ! One is sorely tempted. The 
temptation presses hard npon his spirit, with such 
mighty fascinations is it clad — in such newer "blasphemy 
does it prompt him to indulge, that he thinks surely 
this is a " temptation that is not common to men." But 
at the Class that week, a fellow-traveller relates the 
bitter experience of the same suggestions, and the blest 
experience of deliverance from their power ; and a new 
song is put into his mouth, and he goes on his way re- 
joicing. Another is bowed down beneath the influence 
of a temptation adjusted with such nicety to his peculiar 
besetment as to be almost irresistible in its appeals, but 
the weekly season of fellowship has come, and the 
words of the faithful leader " are words in season," and 
One mightier than the leader is there, and a glance at 
his pure countenance — a touch of his invigorating hand 
— and he is nerved for the conflict, and spurns the 
assaulter away. Another has been stricken with a 
spiritual paralysis — a wearisome torpor has seized him, 
a strange indifference has come upon his soul — and, as 
in the Class-Meeting, he tells his tale of half-heartedness 
and sin, amid the counsels of the faithful and the 
prayers of the pious, the glorious presence of the 
Saviour bursts in light upon the chained one, and in all 
the strength and nobility of spiritual life, he " walks " 
afresh " with God." 

And who can tell the beneficial influence to the Zion- 
ward journeyer, when persons of all ranks, character, 



36 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

and ages, unite to testify that " the same Lord over all 
is rich in mercy nnto all them that call npon him I" 
Perhaps there is an aged pilgrim who for years has 
walked and fainted not. Many a hill of difficulty has 
he climbed, many a valley of humiliation has he trod- 
den — he has tales to tell of wary walkings on enchanted 
ground — of hair-breadth escape out of the net of the 
Flatterer — aye, and of ravishing prospects for the 
Delectable mountains and from the elevations of 
Pisgah; and, while his eye brightens and his voice 
falters, he tells also that he has never repented his 
setting forth on pilgrimage, and that the pleasures are 
sweeter, and the toils less irksome, than when, in youth, 
lie grasped the palmer-staff and strapped on the sandals. 
Is it nothing to be favored with the testimony of such 
an one, and to sit under his shadow with delight ? to 
have our rash judgments rebuked by his experience, 
and our faith confirmed by the ardors of his imperish- 
able hope ? There is a young convert there, it may be, 
who has recently realized a wonderful change, even, 
" from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
unto God." He has found " peace and joy in believ- 
ing ;" and the new-found gladness that is within him 
steeps the sky in brighter blue, and decks the earth 
with bonnier green ; and, blushing at his own fervor, he 
pours forth in the Class-Meeting his ascriptions of praise. 
The old man hears, and is reminded of the days of his 
first love — it is like a snatch of the music that used to 
thrill the soul of yore, and, in a moment, memory has 



TABOE ; OK, TIIE CLASS-MEETING-. 37 

painted the first conviction — the early struggles — the 
doubt that harassed his young mind — the triumph 
with which he hailed its departure — and, above all, the 
eventful moment when joy broke through his swimming 
eyes as he believingly said, "My Father!" Who sees 
not the mutual and glorious benefit — the young 
instructed by the experience of the aged — the aged 
charmed and quickened by the enthusiasm of the 
young. And then there is one sympathy on this head 
which it would be unpardonable in us to omit, and that 
is the sympathy of prayer. Who can be lonely or 
despairing, even in this wilderness world, with the con- 
sciousness that there are hearts praying for him? 
hearts of those who are animated by similar hopes, and 
depressed by similar fears, and who are bound by their 
membership to " make intercession for " the household 
of faith " according to the will of God ?" My friends, 
if there were no other disadvantage in your present 
anomalous position as aloof from the church of Christ, 
than this — that by your separation you deprive yourself 
of the church's prayers — there is a fearfulness in the 
thought which might well cause you to reflect and 
tremble. Desolate indeed is the spirit — cursed as the 
dewless hills of Gilboa — for which no prayer ascends, 
on whose behalf no knee is bowed to heaven. "Rich in 
his penury is poverty's poorest child, if his portion is the 
supplication of the faithful ! Happy the lonely watcher 
upon the gallant vessel's deck, if over the waste of 
waters the wife of his bosom prays ! [Never is a heart 



38 * TABOE ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

orphaned, or divorced utterly from hope and heaven, if 
in some extremes t corner there rises one yearning 
spirit's prayer. And if individual prayer can do so 
much, what must be the effect of many ? My friends, 
we would be almost content to rest the whole" matter 
here, this one advantage would so overwhelmingly con- 
strain your decision. Bold indeed must you be in self- 
confidence, in infatuation, in sin, if you refuse to avail 
yourselves of the sympathy of prayer. Oh ! by every 
motive which your souls will acknowledge as having 
either sacredness or power, you are adjured, against the 
evil day, to insure for yourselves the " effectual fervent 
prayer." 

Y. The Class-Meeting confesses Discipleship. — Every 
believer is called to witness for God. You cannot have 
forgotten how largely our Saviour impressed upon his 
immediate disciples the duty of " not being ashamed 
of him," and of " confessing him in the sight of men." 
You will also recollect how the Apostle of the Gentiles 
makes confession to be on a parallel with faith in that 
memorable passage, " If thou shalt confess with thy 
month the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that 
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, 
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 
Such confession cannot be adequately made either by 
mere verbal acknowledgment or exemplary obedience, it 
can only be made by a solemn dedication " to God's 
people according to his will." Your solitary " witness" 



tabor; or, the '•class-meeting. 39 

of obedience, or of faith, is lost like an invisible atom in 
the air, it is the union of each particle, in itself insig- 
nificant, that constitutes the " cloud " of witnesses 
which the world can see. Ask yourselves, we pray 
you, whether this is not just the element that is lacking 
in your religious decision. You are desirous to flee 
from the wrath, to come — you have yielded in some 
measure to religious influence — you are endeavoring to 
" square your useful lives below by reason and by 
grace " — you. have even felt at times some emotions of 
religious joy, and yet you are not permanently happy. 
Why? Because you have been, pardon the word, 
traitorous to the grace of God, in that, like Hezekiah of 
old, you have not u rendered again according to the 
benefit done unto you." Oh, remember how seriously 
you peril, by your present conduct, the interests of your 
souls ! You are like a venturous traveller, who plunges, 
unaided and alone, into the tangled thicket, whose every 
tree may covert a robber. You are like a ship that has 
voyaged from the fleet, and forsaken the convoy, and if 
a storm should arise, where are the friendly hands to 
launch the life-boat, or to rescue the perishing ? You 
are like a soldier, who, confiding in his own prowess, 
spurns the discipline of the regiment, and passes singly 
through the armies of the aliens, and if he shoidd be 
surprised and stricken, where are the generous comrades 
to cover his retreat, or bear him from the field, or 
" bind up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine ?" Nay, 
friends, for we can hesitate no longer ; we must deliver 



40 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

our soul — God requires this public dedication. He 
must not only have the enlightened approval of the 
head, and the loyal allegiance of the heart, but the 
cordial emir ace of the hand / and we dare not refrain 
from the expression of an opinion, founded, we believe, 
upon the requirements of the law of God, that so long 
as you keep aloof from his people, and are not united 
with some branch of his visible church, you are not 

SAEE TOTJ ARE IN DANGER. 

"We believe in the present state of the antagonist 
armies of truth and error — Neutrality is Opposition. 
" He that is not for us is against us," and the transition 
is a very natural one to the belief that connection with 
some visible branch of the Church of Christ is necessary 
to salvation. We neither limit nor specify — God forbid 
that we should trammel the conscience of any one — but 
as right-hearted Methodists, Methodists from conviction 
and preference, we should be guiltily wrong if we dared 
not recommend our own. 

It is not our business, it is not our wish to make 
proselytes. "We would not descend from our elevation, 
we would not leave our vantage-ground to do it. " We 
have not so learned Christ." "With other churches we 
have no quarrel. "We regard them — all who hold the 
head — as " houses of the Lord," and heartily do we 
wish them God speed. " Let there be no strife between 
our herdmen and theirs." But we differ somewhat in 
our notions of spiritual agriculture, and haply it is our 
vocation to reclaim some waste lands that they would 



TABOR ; OK, THE CLASS-MEETING. 41 

not think worth the tillage. You will not blame us, 
therefore, if while we do not disparage their communion, 
we prefer our own. Broad principles of philanthropy, 
however expansive, never root out the love of home. 
He is a churl, who cannot warm himself at an y hearth 
but his own ; and he is only half a man, who is not, 
after all, loudest in praise of his own ingle nook, and of 
the comfortable blaze that mantles from his own fire. 
Upon you we have a claim. You are haunted by no 
scruples as to the validity of our orders, or the purity 
of our doctrines. By your attendance upon our minis- 
try, you have accorded us your free and generous pre- 
ference. " If we are not apostles unto others, yet 
doubtless we are apostles unto you." Be no longer 
outer court worshippers. Bind yourselves to us by a 
tenderer tie. Come into our church. Approach the 
inner shrines of our worship. Attach yourselves to our 
Class-Meetings, and you will find them to be as the 
" upper room," renowned for the rushing wind and for 
the cloven tongues of flame. 

[Now, dear friends, what is your decision ? Bring all 
your objections, all the thousand excuses which the 
unwilling heart coins ; the fear of man — the inconsis- 
tency of professors — the dread of ridicule — the appre- 
hension of falling — the repugnance to declare God's 
dealings with you ; weigh them in the balance of the 
sanctuary, and ask yourselves, I entreat you, in the 
name of God, and under the impression of his eye, 
u Shall I deem these apologies sufficient in the article 



42 TABOR ; OR, THE CLASS-MEETING. 

of death, and when the light of eternity shall flash upon 
the doings of time ?" 

Dear friends, our task is done. This address has been 
written in mrny weaknesses, and in much prayer. 
Read it in a similar spirit, and ask God in the secrecy 
of your communion-closet, to teach you his will. 
Change is the great law of the present state of being. 
The autograph of decay is graven upon temple, and 
tower, and time. Our friends have faded and fallen in 
our siffht — "who hath not lost a friend?" Ourselves 
are dying creatures. He who writes, and you who 
read, will speedily pass to the judgment. Already the 
broad shadow of eternity looms upon us ; under that 
shadow meditate and decide. Everything around you 
seems to urge a recognition of the vast importance of the 
claim. The wiles of the enemy — the deceitfulnes, never 
yet fathomed, of the human heart — the perils of the yet 
untravelled future — the awfulness of wandering onward, 
agonized and without a praying friend — the blessings 
of Christian communion — the helpfulness of rich and 
mellow experience — the absolute requirement of God — 
all, as with the voice of many waters, swell the force- 
fulness of our last appeal, which we now fling forth 
upon your souls, and may heaven clothe it with power : 
" Come with rs, and we will do you good, for the 
Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." 



PUNSHON'S SERMONS. 



MEMOEIES OF THE WAY. 

" And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led 
thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove 
thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his 
commandments, or no." — Deut. viii. 2. 

A peculiar solemnity would be attached to these 
words in their original utterance, especially in the mind 
of the person who uttered them, for they were spoken 
under the shadow of approaching departure. Last 
words are proverbially impressive, and these were 
among the last words of the veteran Moses to the peo- 
ple of his charge and love. There had grown in his 
heart a strong affection for the children of Israel during 
his forty years' administration of their affairs. He had 
watched over them with fatherly tenderness, and had 
guided them through the intricacies of the desert, to the 
borders of the promised land. Often had he been 
wearied by their murmurings, often had he been pro- 
voked by their unbelief. He had been alternately the 

43 



44: MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

object of their mistrust and of tlieir confidence, of their 
jealousy and of their enthusiasm, and jet their very 
waywardness only seemed the more warmly to endear 
them ; and, with a love stronger than death, he loved 
them unto the end. Aware that, by his unadvised 
speaking at the waters of Meribah, he had barred his 
own entrance into Canaan, and animated with a passion 
for the welfare of his people, intenser as the time of 
their separation drew nearer, he gathered them upon the 
plains of Moab, and in solemn and weighty words re- 
traced the path they had trod, warned them against 
their besetting dangers, and exhorted them to fidelity in 
Jehovah's service. In the midst of this advice, the 
words of the text occur, summoning them, so to speak, 
to take a mental pilgrimage over all the track which 
they had travelled, and to connect it with beneficial 
uses which might influence their future lives. Such a 
review of the past is always wise and salutary when it 
is conducted in a becoming and prayerful spirit, and to 
such a review of the past, therefore, it is that we invite 
you to-day. We may not unprofitably accompany the 
children of Israel in their review of the way which they 
had trod ; we may learn lessons in their company which 
may effectually benefit ourselves. In order that we 
may preserve some sort of system in our contempla- 
tions, we will notice, in the first instance, the remem- 
brance of the way; secondly, the purpose of God's 
providence in the journey ; and, thirdly, the uses of 
the memory. 



MEMORIES OF THE WAT. 45 

I. In the first place, the remembrance of the way. 
" Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy 
God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness." 
It is a wonderful faculty, this faculty of memory. Its 
acts seem to he of the nature of miracles wrought con- 
tinually for the conviction of unbelief. We cannot 
expound its philosophy, nor tell its dwelling-place, nor 
name the subtle chords which evoke it from its slum- 
bers. A snatch of music in the street, the sight of a 
modest flower or of an old tree, a word dropped casu- 
ally by a passer-by, a face that flits by us in the hurry- 
ing crowd, have summoned the gone years to our side, 
and filled us in a moment with memories of divinest 
comfort or of deepest sorrow. The power of memory is 
lasting and is influential. A kindness has been done in 
secret ; but that seed, dropped into the soil of memory, 
has borne fruitage in the gratitude of years. A harsh 
word or an inflicted injury, flung upon the memory, 
has rankled there into lawlessness and into sin. No 
man can be solitary who has memory. The poorest of 
us, if he have memory, is richer than he knows, for by 
it we can reproduce ourselves, be young even when the 
limbs are failing, and have all the past belonging to us 
when the hair is silvery and the eyes are dim. How 
can he be a skeptic or a materialist, for whom memory 
every moment raises the dead, and refuses to surrender 
the departed years to the destroyer; communes with 
the loved ones though the shroud enfolds them ; and 
converses with cherished voices which for long years 



46 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

have never spoken with tongues ? I had almost said, 
but that I know the deep depravity of the human heart, 
how can he sin who has memory ? For though the mur- 
derer may stab his victim in secret, far from living wit- 
nesses, and may carefully remove from the polluted earth 
the foul traces of his crime, memory is a witness that he 
can neither gag nor stifle, and he bears about with him 
in his own terrible consciousness the blasted immor- 
tality of his being. Oh, it is a rare and a divine 
endowment ! Memories of sanctity or sin pervade all 
the firmament of being. There is but the flitting 
moment in which to hope or to enjoy, but in the calen- 
dar of memory that moment is all time. This, then, is 
the faculty which the Jewish law-giver calls up into 
exercise : "Thou shalt remember all the way which the 
Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the 
wilderness." And in truth there could be no grander 
history, nor one richer in instruction, than theirs. 
From the time when they groaned in bondage, and 
their cry went up unto God, until now, when, after 
forty years' vicissitudes, they stood upon the threshold of 
the land of Canaan, each day would have its wonder and 
its lesson. They had been led by a way which they knew 
not ; they had seen the laws of nature suspended, and 
the mechanism of the firmament disorganized on their 
behalf. In Egypt they had quailed beneath the very 
Omnipotence which had. delivered them, and they had 
crouched trembling at the base of Sinai, while ever and 
anon loomed through the darkness the flashings forth 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 47 

of the Divinity within. Sustained by perpetual mira- 
cle, delivered with an outstretched arm, with the bar- 
renness behind and the plenty before them, they were 
to " remember the way which the Lord had led them in 
the wilderness." 

Brethren, our own, if we will only think of it, has 
been an instructive history. There is much in the life 
of each of us, in its rest, and in its change, in its 
hazard, and in its deliverance, which will repay us if 
we revisit it to-day. Be it ours to recall the ,past, to 
recover the obliterated circumstance, to abide again at 
each halting-place of our journey, to decipher the 
various inscriptions which the lapse of time has fretted 
almost to decay, to remember, as the Israelites, the way 
which the Lord hath led us. 

1. There would be in their history, in the first place, 
the remembrance of favor, and by consequence of joy. 
All through their course they had had very special 
manifestations of the power and goodness of God. He 
had brought them out with a high hand from the pride 
and tyranny of Pharaoh, he had cleared a path for 
them through the obedient waters, the heavens had 
rained down sustenance, the rock had quenched their 
thirst ; Jehovah's presence had gone with them 
through the tangled desert path, by day in guiding 
cloud, by night in lambent flame ; their raiment had 
not waxed old upon them, neither their foot swelled, 
for forty years. He had spoiled their enemies in 
their sight. Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, 



48 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

king of Bashan, had fallen before his power. When 
the law-giver gathered the tribes in the plains of 
Moab, he could say : " Not one thing of all that the 
Lord your God, hath spoken hath ever failed ;" and 
there was not a murmur in the host, and there was not 
an individual in the congregation that could either gain- 
say or deny. 

Brethren, there could not fail to be great and grateful 
rejoicing in this remembrance of the loving kindness 
of the Lord. That loving kindness has compassed us 
from the first moment of our existence until now, and 
by his favor he hath made our mountain to stand strong. 
I would call up before you to-day those scenes in your 
history upon which you are apt to dwell with joyous 
and grateful memory. Think of the gracious Provi- 
dence who cared for your infancy, and who prevented 
your doings in youth ; think of the unexpected deliver- 
ances, the unlooked-for surprises of blessing with which 
you have been visited ; pause before the various stones 
of help which you have erected in the course of your 
journey ; remember the stores of gladness inexhaust- 
ible and constantly operating, that have been poured 
upon you by the bounty of your heavenly Father ; the 
joy of your heart, the joy peculiar to yourselves, the 
natural and inevitable outflow of childhood's sportive- 
ness and glee, the joy of enlarging knowledge, the joy 
of some new discovery of the beautiful, of some keener 
thirst after the true ; the joy of travel, the sight of 
earth's great cities, fair landscapes, and spots renowned 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 49 

in song and story; the joy of home, of parents whose 
love has cast a spell npon your after-lives, from which 
yon wonld not be disenchanted if you could — brother, 
and sister, and wife, and husband, names that mean 
more to the heart, a thousand-fold, than they can ever 
mean to the ear; friends that knew you and that under- 
stood you, those twin souls who bore with your weak- 
nesses without chiding, and who entered into your 
dreams with sympathy. The joy of meetings, and of 
farewells, and of that which came between more sweet 
than each. The joy of the Church ; victory over some 
besetting temptation ; glad seasons of Christian fellow- 
ship, which can never be forgotten ; sermons that 
seemed, in their exquisite adaptedness, as if they had 
been made for you, to counsel in perplexity, to comfort 
in trouble ; sacramental occasions when, in no distem- 
pered vision, you "saw heaven opened, and the Son 
of Man standing upon the right hand of the throne of 
God." The joy of usefulness, the gladness which thrilled 
through you when you succored the distressed, or were 
valiant for the truth, or pitied and reclaimed the erring, 
or flung the garment of praise over some bewildered 
spirit of heaviness. The joy that has sprung for you 
out of sorrow, and has been all the brighter for the con- 
trast ; deliverance from danger which threatened to be 
imminent, recovery from sickness that seemed as though 
it were about to be mortal ; the lightnings that have let 
the glory through the clouds ; the flowers that you have 
so often plucked from tombs. Call up the mighty sum 

3 



50 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

of gladness now, and as, subdued and grateful in the 
memory, you think of your past times, many a lip 
will quiver and many a heart be full, as you remem- 
ber the way which the Lord hath led you in the wil- 
derness. 

2. There would, secondly, be in their history the re- 
membranee of sin, and, by consequence of sin, the re- 
membrance of sorrow. Nothing is more remarkable as 
a fact, and more illustrative of the depravity of the 
human heart, than the frequency with which the child- 
ren of Israel sinned. Only three days after the won- 
derful interposition at the Red Sea, their murmurings 
began. The miracle at Marah, although it appeased 
their thirst, failed to inspire their confidence, for they 
tempted God again at the Waters of Strife. Although 
the manna fell without ceasing, they lusted after the 
neshpots of Egypt. Their whole history, indeed, is a 
record of perpetual sin, a perpetual lapse, now into 
jealousy, and now into sensualism, now into unbelief, 
and now, alas, into idolatry. These repeated trans- 
gressions, of necessity, introduced them to sorrow, and 
they suffered, in almost every variety, the strokes of 
Jehovah's displeasure. They were wasted by success- 
ive pestilences ; they were devoured by fiery serpents 
in the wilderness ; the earth opened her mouth and 
swallowed up the rebellious sons of Korah ; the Lord 
went not forth with their hosts to battle ; and they fled 
discomfited and crestfallen before the face of their 
enemies. Their journey was made protracted and 



MEMORIES OF THE WAT. 51 

dangerous. Bereavement visited every tent in turn. 
One after another the head of each family, bowed, and 
sunk, and fell, until of all those who left Egypt, stal- 
wart and sinewy men, only two, and those of another 
spirit, remained to enter into the land of promise and 
of rest ; and the very lawgiver who called up the 
exercise of the memory, and the few old men, upon 
whose brows the almond tree was flourishing, thinly 
scattered here and there among the tribes, knew that 
their heads "must bow, their frames dissolve in death, 
ere the van-standard of the host could be unfurled 
within the borders of the promised land. There could 
not fail to be subdued and pensive emotion in this 
aspect of the remembrance of the way. Our own 
history has its sorrowful side, too, which it will be well 
for us to remember to-day. All sorrow, of course, 
comes originally from sin, but there is some sorrow 
which we inherit from no personal transgression, but 
which has been handed down to us, a sad entail of 
suffering, a disastrous transmission from our earliest 
fathers. The remembrance of such sorrows stretches 
far back in the history of every one's life. Perhaps 
you were cruelly treated in youth, and you can hardly 
think of it now without shuddering. Perhaps some 
bitter disappointment made your path ungenial, or 
some early unkindness came like a frost-blight upon 
your fresh, young hopes, just when you were beginning 
to indulge them. Perhaps a long sickness chained you 
down, and you suffered the illness of hope deferred, 



52 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

and you wondered whether the cheek would ever bloom 
again in the ruddiness of health, and whether the elas- 
tic pulse would ever bound and swell through the veins. 
Perhaps there are other memories — most likely there 
are — so dense in their darkness as to cast all the rest 
into a relief of lesser shadow. The first breaking up 
of your homes, the stroke that swept you into orphan- 
hood, or that took away the desire of your eyes with a 
stroke, or that cast you upon a cold world's charities 
for work and bread. Call up these memories, though 
the heart bleeds afresh as you think of them. They 
have their uses ; they need not be summoned for the 
first time in vain. And then the memory of sin — 
don't hide it, don't be cowardly about it; confront 
your yesterdays, not in defiance, but in penitence and 
prayer ; your long resistance to the strivings of the 
Holy Spirit, the veiled impertinence with which you 
refused to hearken to a father's counsels and were deaf 
to the entreaties of a mother's prayers. The sins of 
your youth, which, though you humbly trust are par- 
doned by the grace of God, plague you still, like the 
scars of some old wound, with shooting pains in many 
a change of weather. Your unfaithfulness since the 
Lord called you, your indulgence since your conversion 
in things you dared not for your lives have done while 
you were seeking mercy. How you have cherished 
some secret idol, or forborne to deliver them that were 
drawn to death, or dwelt in your ceiled houses, intent 
only upon you own aggrandizement and pleasure, 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 53 

while the house of God lay waste. Call up these 
memories, do not disguise them ; they will bow you in 
humility before God. *, 

This is the memory of the way. "Thou shalt re- 
member all the way which the Lord thy God hath led 
thee.*' - All the way — it is necessary that all the way 
should be remembered — the hill of difficulty as well as 
the valley of humiliation, the time of prosperity as well 
as the time of pain. Necessary for our advantage that 
we may understand our position, learn the lessons of 
providence and grace ; necessary that we may con- 
struct a narrative, for every event in our history is con- 
nected and mutually interpreted; necessary that we 
may trace the outworking of Jehovah's plan in the 
successive achievements of our lives. And if by the 
memory of joy you are impressed with God's benefi- 
cence, kept in cheerful piety, and saved from the foul 
sin of repining ; and if by the memory of sorrow you 
are molded into a gentler type, taught a softer sym- 
pathy, and receive a heavenward impulse, and antici- 
pate a blessed reunion ; if by the memory of sin you 
are reminded of your frailty, and rebuked of your 
pride, stimulated to repentance and urged to trust in 
God — then it will be no irksomeness, but a heaven-sent 
and precious blessing that you have thus " remembered 
the way that the Lord hath led thee in the wilder- 
ness." 

II. I come, secondly, to notice the purposes of Divine 
Providence in the journey. These are stated to be 



54 MEMORIES OF THE WAT. 

three : " to humble thee and to prove thee, to know 
what was in thine heart, whether thou wonkiest keep 
his commandments or no." The passage cells us that 
in all God's dealings with the children of Israel, whether 
he corrected them in judgment or enriched them witli 
bounty, there were purposes at work — purposes of spi- 
ritual discipline, intended to induce self-searching and 
the improvement of their hearts and lives. 

1. The first purpose that is spoken of is to induce 
humility — "to humble thee." Every event, alike in 
their deliverance from Egypt and in their passage 
through the wilderness, was calculated to show them 
their own feebleness, and their constant dependence 
upon a high and upon a superior power. What could 
human might have effected for them in the way of 
securing their deliverance from Egypt? Their spirits 
were broken by long years of slavery ; the iron had not 
only gyved their limbs, it had entered into their soul. 
They had not the heart, any one of them, to strike for 
freedom ; and if they had even meditated a rising, they 
were a people of such divided counsels, and so dis- 
trustful of each other, that it would have been but a 
paroxysm of frantic rebellion, which would have rooted 
the Pharaohs on the empire, and have riveted upon 
themselves the yoke of a more bitter bondage. "When 
the permission for departure was wrung reluctantly 
from the plague-stricken king, what could human 
might have availed for them, when he repented of his 
momentary graciousness, and pursued after them in hot 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 55 

haste, and they were on the borders of the Red Sea, 
with the giant waves barring their progress, and a host 
of ferocious enemies behind ? Everything in their ex- 
perience taught them their dependence upon God. 
They were led through a region that no adventurer 
had ever explored, no foot had ever trod. When they 
pitched their tents at eventide, they knew not at what 
hour they should strike them, nor whether they should 
strike them at all ; there might be forced years of en- 
campment in that one spot ; there might be forced 
marches and rapid progress ; but they had no control 
over it : as the pillar went, and wherever the pillar 
went, they went ; and as they sounded forth their 
matin song of praise, there was not a man in the whole 
congregation that could tell through what rocky clefts 
or woody defiles the echoes of the vesper hymn would 
sound. Their supply was as miraculous as their guid- 
ance. ISTo plough had turned up the soil, no river mur- 
mured by their side, they had never gazed for forty 
years upon one solitary blossom of the spring-time, nor 
had the golden grain ever once in their sight bent 
gracefully to the sickle of the reaper : they were fed 
with manna, which they knew not. 

" When faint they were and parched with drought, 
Water at his word gushed out." 

Oh! it is the world's grandest illustration of man's 
absolute feebleness and of God's eternal power. 600,000 
fighting men, beside women and children, led by Divine 



56 MEMOKIES OF THE WAT. 

leadership, and fed by Divine bounty, for the space of 
forty years. Brethren, the dealings of Providence with 
ourselves are intended to show us our dependence upon 
God, and to humble us in the dust under his mighty 
hand. "We are very proud, sometimes, and we talk 
about our endowments, and we boast largely of what we 
have done, and what we intend to do ; but we can do 
absolutely nothing. The athletic frame — how soon can 
he bring it down ! The well-endowed heritage — how 
soon can he scatter it ! The mental glance, keen and 
piercing — how soon can he bring upon it the dimness 
and bewilderment of years ! We cannot, any one of 
us, bring ourselves into being ; we cannot, any one of 
us, sustain ourselves in being for a moment. Alas! 
who of us can stay the spirit, when the summons has 
gone forth that it must die ? "We are free ; we cannot 
help feeling that we are free ; and yet we can as little 
help feeling that our freedom is bounded, that it has a 
horizon, something that indicates a watchful Providence 
outside. How often have we aimed at building for 
ourselves tabernacles of remembrance and of rest, and 
we have gazed upon the building joyfully as it pro- 
gressed to completion, and then the breath of the Lord 
lias blown upon it, and it has been scattered, and we 
have been turned adrift and shelterless ; and, lo ! 
dwellings already provided for us of firmer materials 
and of more excellent beauty, upon which we bestowed 
no labor nor thought. And so it is with all the matters 
of human glory. The strong man rejoiceth in his 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 57 

strength, and magnifieth himself in the might of his 
arms, but the Lord hath made him strong; the wise 
man glorifieth himself in his intellect, but the clear per- 
ception, and the brilliant fancy, and the fluent utter- 
ance, these are God's gifts ; the rich man rejoiceth in 
his riches, but the prudence to plan, and the sagacity to 
foresee, and the industry to gather, these are the bestow- 
in en ts of God. 

Ah ! why will men sacrifice to their own net, and 
burn incense to their own drag, when they have abso- 
lutely nothing which they have not received ; and 
when every gift cometh from the Father of light, with 
whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
ing ? And in the realm of morals, and in the spiritual 
life, our feebleness is the same. A conscience void of 
offence, a good report of those that are without a 
heavenly purpose or a holy resolve, the inner purifica- 
tion or the comely outgrowth of a beneficent life — we 
are poor to compass them. We acquire them only by 
our dependence upon God. Have you learned this 
lesson, this deep, hard lesson of humility ? Forty years' 
sins you have committed ! have they humbled you in 
the presence of God ? Forty years' chastenings have 
corrected you ! have they humbled your pride or fretted 
you into greater audacity of rebellion ? Forty years' 
mercies have blessed you ! have they excited your 
gratitude or inflated, your vanity ? Brethren, we must 
be humbled, if we would be happy. It wan in the 
Valley of Humiliation, you remember, that the lad that 

3* 



58 MEMOEIES OF THE WAT. 

had the herb heart's-ease in his bosom kept his serene 
and his rejoicing home. 

2. Then the second purpose of God's providence in 
the journey is to prove us. The idea seems to be, that 
a skillful chemist employs tests for the purpose of ana- 
lysis, and to discover the composition of that which he 
examines, so God uses the occurrences of life as a moral 
touchstone, to discover the tendencies and inclinations 
of man. Thus we read God did tempt, test, try, prove 
Abraham, requiring from him a sacrifice, excessive and 
apparently cruel, in order that he might know the 
strength of his servant's faith, and of his filial fear. 
There were many of those testing circumstances in the 
history of the children of Israel. They were tested by 
their mercies, as when, feeling the manna insipid, they 
lusted after the flesh-pots of Egypt ; they were tested by 
their duties ; they were tested by their calamities, as at 
the Red Sea, and in the conflicts with the hosts of 
Amalek. They were tested by their companions, as 
when they formed unholy league with Midianite idola- 
ters, and brought upon themselves that swift destruction 
which Balak wished for, but which the cowardly Balaam 
dared not for his life invoke. Brethren, God has his 
crucible still. In our past lives we shall find circum- 
stances that have tried ourselves, and we shall remem- 
ber the results of the trial sometimes with devout 
gratitude, oftener with unfeigned shame. Our afflic- 
tions have tried us, and we have thought that we have 
done well to be angry, and we have arraigned the pro- 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 59 

ceedings of God at the bar of our limited reason (solemn 
mockery of judicature !) when, perhaps, the reflection 
of to-morrow would have approved what the distrust of 
to-day was so ready to condemn. Our duties have tried 
us. We have felt the shrinking of the flesh, and the 
result has been sometimes their reluctant and sometimes 
their spiritless discharge. Other people have been 
unjust or unkind to us : we have met with ingratitude 
or with treachery ; our own familiar one, in whom we 
trusted, has betrayed us ; slander has been busy belch- 
ing out her calumnies against our fair fame ; all these 
things have tested our patience, our endurance, our 
meekness, our long-suffering, and, like Moses, we have 
spoken unadvisedly, or, like the disciples, we have had 
to pray, " Lord, increase our faith," before we could 
grasp the large and princely idea of forgiveness to 
seventy times seven. Often companionships have tried 
us, and we have shown how small has been our self- 
reliance and how easily we have taken the hue and 
mold of the society in which we were thrown, and how 
a pointed finger, or a sarcastic laugh, or a lip scornfully 
curled, can shame the manhood out of us, and make us 
very cowards in resisting evil, or in bearing witness for 
God. Thus have we been, thus has God proved us in 
the wilderness, and if we are in earnest for heaven, and 
if we have in any measure profited by the discipline, we 
shall be thankful for the trial. Placed as we are in a 
sinful world, exposed to its e very-day influences, 
whether of good or evil, w T e need a piety which can 



60 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

maintain itself in all circumstances, and under every 
pressure. The trial will be a matter of choice, preferred 
by every godly and valiant Christian soldier. He 
feels as though that were an inglorious heaven that was 
won without a sacrifice and without a toil ; he knows 
that the promise is not that he shall pass through the 
wilderness without the sight of an enemy ; it is a better 
promise than that — that we shall never see an enemy 
that we cannot master, and that by God's grace we can- 
not completely overcome ; and he had rather don his 
armor for a foeman worthy of his steel, for an enemy 
that will at once prove his own valor and show the 
resources of the Captain of his salvation, than he would 
don it in order to prance in the gorgeous apparellings of 
some holiday review. Oh ! believe me, the piety which 
the world needs, which the church needs, and which we 
must have if we would be approved of our Great 
Master, must not be that sickly sentimentality which 
lounges on ottomans, and discusses social and moral 
problems while it is at ease in Sion ; it must be the 
hardy principle pining in inaction, robust from healthy 
exercise, never so happy as when it is climbiug up the 
slopes of some difficult duties, and has the breeze from 
the crest of the mountain stirring amid its waving hair ; 
and happy, thrice happy, will it be for you if, as the 
result of the inspection, you can say, as David did, 
" Thou hast proved my heart and thou hast visited me 
in the night ; thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing. 
I am purposed that my heart shall not transgress, con- 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 61 

cerning the works of men ; by the word of thy lips 
I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." 

3. And then the third purpose of Providence in the 
journey is " to Tcnow what was in thine heart — whether 
thou wouldest keep his commandments or no." The 
human heart is a microcosm — a little world, containing in 
itself all the strifes, and all the hopes, and all the fears, 
and all the ventures of the larger world outside. The 
human heart ! who can unravel its mystery, or decipher 
its hidden law? The smile may play upon the lip, 
while beneath there is die broken, burning heart ; and, 
on the other hand, the countenance may have shadow 
of anxiety, while the sunlight dances gaily on the soul. 
The human heart! Human knowledge can give us very 
little acquaintance with it ; such knowledge is too won- 
derful for man ; it is high, and he cannot attain unto it ; 
but there is One who knows it, and knows all its tortuous 
policy, and all its sinister motive, and he is anxious that 
we should know it, too, and one purpose of his provi- 
dential dealings with us is, that we may know what is 
in our heart; and yet of all sciences none is so difficult 
of attainment as this same science of self-knowledge. 
Whether it be from the deceitf ulness of the object of 
study, or whether it be from the morbid reluctance, 
almost amounting to fear, with which men shrink from 
acquaintance with themselves, there are few that have 
the bravery to pray, "Lord, make me to know myself." 
Indeed, it were a hideous picture if it were suddenly 
unveiled in the presence of us all. When the L^rd 



62 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 

would show Ezekiel the abominations of Jerusalem, he 
led him through successive chambers of imagery, upon 
the walls of which were portrayed their loathsome and 
unworthy doings. Ah ! if our enormities were to be 
thus tapestried in our sight, who of us could bear the 
disclosure? There w T as deep self-knowledge and deep 
humility in the word of the old reformer, who, w T hen he 
saw a criminal led off amid the jeers of the multitude to 
be hanged at Tyburn, turned around sighing, and said : 
" There, but for the grace of God, goes old John Brad- 
ford." There is a very affecting illustration of what can 
lurk unsuspected in the human heart, in the 8th chapter 
of the 2nd book of Kings: "And Elisha came to 
Damascus ; and Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, was sick ; 
and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come 
hither. And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present 
in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and in- 
quire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover of this 
disease? So Hazael went to meet him, and took a pre- 
sent with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, 
forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, 
and said, Thy son, Ben-hadad, king of Syria, hath sent 
me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease ? And 
Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest 
certainly recover. [The disease itself is not fated to 
destroy thee ; there is no decree of that kind], ilowbeit 
the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die.. 
And he settled his countenance steadfastly, until he was 
ashamed ; and the man of God wept. And Hazael said, 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 63 

Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I 
know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of 
Israel ; their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their 
young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash 
their children, and rip up their women with child. 
And Hazael said [shocked at the bare mention of such 
atrocities], But what, is thy servant a dog, that he 
should do this great thing?" But, as the old divine 
quaintly says, " the dog did it after all." Brethren, 
there lurks this danger in us all ; there is no superiority 
of character in ourselves ; there is no firmer power of 
resistance to evil. In our unaided strength we are no 
better fortified against the extremes of iniquity than 
many around us who now wallow in the atrocities of 
crime. That speculative merchant, whose affairs had be- 
come hopelessly embarrassed, and who, in the vain hope 
of retrieval, plied the too ready pen of the forger, and 
in that sad moment forfeited the probity of years — how 
sad must have been his reflections when, to use his own 
expressive words, he " agonized on," when he thought 
that he should transmit to his children nothing but the 
heritage of a blasted name, and that those children 
would have an up-hill struggle all the way through life, 
their own blamelessness being a small matter against 
the terrible opprobrium of their father's misdoings. He 
who continues in the feast until wine inflames him, im- 
agines that he can tread without danger upon the giddy 
verge over which multitudes have fallen ; but, by little 
and little, he cherishes the unappeasable thirst for drink 



64 MEMORIES O* THE WAY. 

until it becomes a morbid physical malady, and, frantic 
and despairing, he rushes down into the drunkard's 
grave. That youth who, at the solicitation of some gay 
companion, ventures, for the first time, into the foul hell 
of a gaming-house, and who joins in the perilous hazard, 
would scoff at the prophet who should tell him that, a 
few years hence, a gambler and a spendthrift, he should 
live in poverty and die in shame. That young man 
who, to gain funds, perhaps, for the Sunday excursion, 
or for the night's debauch, took the money from his 
master's till with the conscientious intention of replac- 
ing it at the time of the quarterly supply, little thought 
that that deceitful heart of his would land him in a 
felon's dock, or, upon the deck of the transport ship, 
waft him to a returnless distance from his country and 
his home. Brethren, from a thousand causes of disaster 
and of shame with which our experience can furnish us, 
and which we read in the history of every-day life, it 
becomes us, with godly jealousy watching over our own 
hearts, to guard against the beginnings of evil ; and as 
we think of blighted reputations and of ruined hopes — 
of many once fair, and innocent, and scrupulous, and 
promising as we — as we gaze upon the wreck of many 
a gallant vessel stranded by our side, which we saw 
steaming out of the harbor with stately pennons — let us 
remember that in us there are the same tendencies to 
evil, that it is grace — only grace — which hath made us 
to differ, and that each instance of calamity and of sin, 
while it evokes our pity — not our scorn — for those that 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 65 

have so grievously erred, should proclaim in solemn ad- 
monition to ourselves, "Let him that thinketh he 
standeth take heed lest he fall." " To know what is in 
thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his command- 
ments or no." 

III. If you have thus travelled in the way that you 
have trodden, there will be many uses of the memory 
which we cannot stay to particularize to-day. You will 
know more of God at the conclusion of your visit than 
you did at the commencement. You will behold in the 
way both the goodness and the severity of God — the 
severity which punishes sin wherever it is to be found, 
the goodness which itself provides a substitute and finds 
a Saviour. Where do you not find him, rather ? There 
was the stream gushing forth from the smitten rock — 
was there not ? — and the perishing and thirsty Israelites 
were happy. "They drank of the rock that followed 
them, and that rock was Christ." There was the brazen 
serpent, the symbol of accepted propitiation in the wil- 
derness of sin. " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so hath the Son of Man been lifted up, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
should have everlasting life." Oh, as you gather up 
those memories — the memory of joy, the memory of 
sorrow, the memory of sin — as you remember the good- 
ness and the loving kindness of the Lord, his faithful- 
ness to fulfill his promises, his tenderness, which your 
repeated rebellions have not caused to fail — gather up 
yourselves in one earnest consecration of flesh and 



66 MEMORIES OF THE WAT. 

spirit^ which I take to be the best consecration of the 
house which you now dedicate to God — living temples, 
pillars in the house of God, that shall go out no more 
forever. 






II. 

THE BELIE VEE'S SUFFICIENCY. 

" Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of our- 
selves ; but our sufficiency is of God." — 2 Corinthians, iii. 5. 



The promise contained in these words is one of the 
most encouraging and one of the most comprehensive 
in the Bible. It is the essence of all Christian expe- 
rience ; it is the moral which the Scriptures continually 
inculcate, and it stands in the heraldry of heaven as the 
motto on the believer's arms. The all-sufficiency of 
God has been the support and comfort of the faithful in 
all ages of the Church. On this rock Abraham built 
his hope ; to this refuge in all times of trial the sweet 
Singer of Israel fled; by this confidence the great 
Apostle of the Gentiles was constantly and persever- 
ingly upheld. The all-sufficiency of God gives strength 
to patience, gives solidity to hope, gives constancy to 
endurance, gives nerve and vitality to effort. The 
weakest believer, with this great treasure in possession, 
is enabled to go steadily forward, sacrificing no duty, 
resisting all sin ; and, amidst every horror and every 
humiliation, feeling within him the still, clear light of 

67 



63 

life. To this the most eminent saints are indebted for 
all they enjoy, for all they are enabled to perform ; and 
though assailed by various foes without, and by various 
fears within, by this they can return from every con- 
flict, bearing the spoils of victory ; and as with the 
trophies of their triumph they erect the grateful Ebene- 
zer, you may see this inscription written upon them all : 
" Having obtained help of God, we continue unto this 
day," feeling most deeply the impotency of the nature 
they inherit, and penetrated with the sense of the diffi- 
culties by which they are surrounded. When faith 
is in exercise, they point to this as a never-fail- 
ing source of strength ; and in the course of their 
untried and unswerving pilgrimage, this is their lan- 
guage : " Let the wise man, if he will be so foolish, 
trust in his wisdom ; let the rich man glory in his 
wealth ; let the proud man vaunt his own dignity ; let 
the trifler make the world his defence; we dare not 
trust to such refuges of lies, we dare not build upon 
foundations that are palpably insecure. We feel our 
own nothingness ; but we feel our own might, because 
our sufficiency is of God. 

From the commencement of the chapter out of which 
these words are taken, we learn that the same exclu- 
siveness of spirit existed in the days of Paul which 
exists in certain quarters now, and that the same charge 
— that of false apostleship — was brought against him 
that has since been so plentifully flung at eminent 
ministers of Jesus Christ. It is no small consolation to 



THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY. 69 

find that we are thus unchurched in good company. 
The apostle, however, answers the accusation just as 
any man would do, who had no particular interest to 
serve in surrounding a great question with a crowd of 
arguments anything but luminous — he appeals to the 
Church amongst whom he had labored, and asks their 
verdict as to his success as a minister : " Do we begin 
again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some 
others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of 
commendation from you ? Ye are our epistle [your 
changed hearts, your holy lives, your transformed affec- 
tions, your heavenly deportment — ye are our epistles] 
written in our hearts, known and read of all men : for- 
asmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle 
of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink [nor 
anything so fading], but with the Spirit of the living 
God ; not in tables of stone [nor anything so hard], but 
in fleshy tables of the heart ; and suclj trust have we 
through Christ to Godward ;" then, so anxious is he 
even in this moment of his triumphant vindication to 
avoid all appearance of boasting, that he puts in a great 
disclaimer : " not that we are sufficient of ourselves to 
think anything of ourselves ; all that, whether in us as 
subjects or by us as the instruments, has been done by 
the sovereign power of God, who also hath made us 
able ministers of the "New Testament, not of the letter, 
but of the Spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit 
giveth life." The Apostle in these verses unfolds the 
great secret both of ministerial call and of ministerial 



70 THE EELIEVEIi's SUFFICIENCY. 

efficiency. It is God, not man, that makes, not finds, 
a"ble ministers of the ]STew Testament. The tones of his 
voice are heard, saying to them, " Son, go work to-day 
in my vineyard." And it is a remarkable fact, one 
which we should never forget, that this voice is never 
heard in a heart where there is no faith ; consequently, 
the prime qualification for a minister of the Christian 
religion is the heart that has been melted by its love, 
and a consciousness which has felt it in its power. 
Without this, all else is unavailing ; the attainment of 
the most profound and extensive knowledge, the grasp 
of the loftiest and most scholarly intellect, the posses- 
sion of the most commanding eloquence, the treasures 
of the most imperial fancy, the research of the most 
accomplished scholar, all these are useless, worse than 
useless, if they be not consecrated by the Spirit of the 
Holy One ; only the trappings that decorate the traitor, 
and make his treason yet the fouler ; only the weapons 
of more imminent danger, and the portents of more 
terrific and appalling ruin. The most distinguished 
minister within the compass of the Catholic Church, 
however eminent he may be, however signally his 
labors have been blessed, has reason to remember, 
every moment of his ministerial career, "I am nothing, 
less than nothing; but my sufficiency is of God." The 
comfortable and scriptural doctrine contained in the 
text is not more true of ministers, of whom it was 
immediately spoken, than of Christians in general, to 
whom it may be properly applied. The station is 



THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY. 71 

different, the strength is the same. Your suffi- 
ciency, as well as ours, is of God. To take the 
words in this extended sense, we may find in them 
matter of profitable meditation, by considering first 
the nature of this sufficiency and then the authority 
which believers have to expect this sufficiency for 
themselves. 

I. First, the sufficiency of God may be considered 
either as proper, or communicated. By his essential, or 
proper sufficiency, we mean that he is self-existent, self- 
sufficient, independently happy ; angels and men may 
declare that they cannot increase his glory ; it is eter- 
nal, underived, perfect. He has said that he will never 
give it to another. There was no necessity in his 
nature impelling him to create the universe ; he could 
have existed alone, and he did exist alone, long be- 
fore the everlasting silence was broken by a human 
footstep, or interrupted by a human .voice ; and that 
Divine solitude was the solitude of matchless happiness. 
The best praises, therefore, the most extensive services 
of his worshippers, are but reflections of the glory 
which dwells originally in himself. But it is of the 
sufficiency of God in relation to his creatures that it is 
our province especially to speak. And it is in this 
sense God is good to all, and his tender mercies are 
over all his works. 

1. He is sufficient, in the first place — let us take low 
ground first— for the preservation of the universe which 
his hands have made. From the sublime account 



72 the believer's sufficiency. 

which the Scriptures give us of creation, we learn that 
the heavens were made by him, and all the host of 
them by the breath of his mouth ; and as we know that 
nothing earthly has within it the power to sustain itself, 
we are further assured that he upholdeth all things by 
the same word of his power. It is by this ever-breath- 
ing word, constantly in exercise, that the sun shines, 
that the moon walks in brightness, that the stars pursue 
their courses in the sky ; the clouds are marshalled by 
his Divine decree, and when he uttereth his voice there 
is a multitude of waters in the heavens. Reason looks 
at this systematic and continuous regularity, and 
admires it, and refers it to the operation of second 
causes, and argues very philosophically about the 
nature and fitness of things ; but piety looks through 
the complications of the mechanism to the hand that 
formed it. The universe is to her but one vast trans- 
parency, through which she can gaze on God ; her 
pathway and her communion are on the high places of 
creation, and there, far above all secondary and sub- 
ordinate agencies, she discovers the hiding of his power. 
The symmetry of nature is to her more beautiful, 
because God has produced it. The deep harmonies of 
the systems come more tunefully upon her ear because 
the hand of the Lord has awakened them. 

"What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid the radiant orbs be found? 
In faith's quick ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a noble voice, 



73 



For ever singing as they shine, 

' The hand that made us is Divine.' " 

And what a contemplation does this open to us of the 
majesty and power of God! Who can understand it? 
The planets are kept in their orbits, and the seasons 
continually alternate. Old Ocean dashes himself upon 
the shore, and every day finds " hitherto " written upon 
the sand, and the mad surge respects it. The earth 
yields her increase ; vegetable life is evolved ; circula- 
tion takes place throughout the animal system ; man 
walks and lives, and all these diversified operations are 
produced at one and the same moment, perpetuated 
from one moment to another by the simple word of 
God. Extend your conceptions still further ; take hold 
of the far-reaching discoveries of astronomy. Glance 
at the numberless suns and systems that are scattered 
in the broad field of immensity, and remember (for 
there is no Scripture against it, and probabilities are 
strongly in favor of the opinion), that they are all in- 
habited by dependent creatures somewhat like our- 
selves. Glance at the almost infinite variety of exist- 
ences with which we are acquainted — whether we walk 
the earth, or cleave the air, or swim the sea — connect 
with all these the Scriptural announcement that these 
are but parts of his ways, and how little a portion is 
known of them ; and then how thought shrinks from 
the aggregate ! how the brain recoils from the contem- 
plation of the sum ! and we may well finish the quota- 
tion, and say, "The thunder of his power, who can 

4 



understand?" All our reasonings npon the subject 
only serve to demonstrate that man by searching can- 
not find out God. Could you, with the swiftness of a 
sunbeam, dart yourselves beyond the limits of the 
known creation, and for ages upon ages continue your 
pilgrimage in infinite space, you would never — who can 
grasp that thought ? it is too large for us — never be able 
to reach a place where God is not, never light upon a 
spot where this glorious Being is not essentially and 
influentially present. The whole universe is one vast 
laboratory of benevolent art, over every department of 
which the Deity presides — a sanctuary, every part of 
which the Divinity inhabits — a circle, whose circumfe- 
rence is unfathomed, and whose every section is filled 
with God. But I stop here just for a moment, to re- 
mind you of the thrill that comes through the heart of 
the believer, when, after this exhibition of boundless 
and colossal power, he can go home, singing— 

" This all-sufficient God is ours, 
Our Father, and our love/' 

Our sufficiency is of God. 

2. Then, secondly, and chiefly, he is sufficient /br the 
preservation and for the perpetuity of the Gospel plan, 
in the salvation and idtimate happiness of every indi- 
vidual believer. Christianity is not to be viewed by us 
merely as a moral system - ; that were to place it on a 
level with the speculations of Confucius, and Socrates, 
and others. It is something more, it is a course of 



75 

Divine operations. We are not to regard it as a mere 
ethical statement of- doctrine made known to us by a 
bundle of books ; we must remember the Divine 
agency always, by which it is conducted and inspired. 
We observed before, that no mere man has the power 
to produce an abiding change upon the hearts of his 
hearers. Human eloquence is a mighty thing, I know ; 
human reason is a persuasive and powerful thing, I 
know ; under certain favorable conjunctures of circum- 
stances, they have sometimes achieved mighty results. 
They can shame a Herod, they can make a Felix trem- 
ble, they can almost persuade an Agrippa to become a 
Christian, but they can do no more. I know that im- 
mense multitudes have been swayed by the power of a 
single tongue. The passions have become excited, 
either to madness or to sympathy, either to deeds of 
lawless aggression, or to deeds of high emprise; but 
then there is only a transient mastery obtained. We 
read of a harp in the classical fables of old, which, 
when the winds swept it, was said to discourse sweet 
strains ; but then, unhappily, the breeze and the music 
died away together. So it is with, the triumph of the 
orator : the moment the voice of the speaker ceases the 
spell is broken, the charm is dissipated; reflection 
begins to remonstrate against excitement, and the whole 
affair is forgotten, or comes upon the soul- only as the 
memory of some pleasant song. Nay, truth, celestial 
truth, can produce no abiding change. Pardon and 
sanctification are not the necessary consequences of 



76 the believer's sufficiency. 

statements of doctrine. Scripture cannot produce 
them ; the truth may appear in all its cogency and in 
all its power before the mind — it may appear so clear 
as to extort an acquiescence in what it propounds ; bnt 
it is uninfluential ; it lacks energy, and it lacks a self- 
appliant power. It may enlighten — that is its province 
— it can never save. "Without the Spirit it is useless ; 
let the Spirit animate it, and it is the power of God. 
Hearers who sit under the ministrations of the truth 
without the Spirit may be likened to a man standing 
upon the brow of a hill which commands the prospect 
of an extensive landscape. The varied beauties of flood 
and of field are before him ; nature is clad in her richest 
livery, there is every variety calculated to interest and 
to inspire ; rugged rocks frown as if they would keep 
sentinel over the sleeping valley ; the earth yields her 
increase, the crystal streamlet leaps merrily along, im- 
pressions of the beautiful are everywhere visible, there 
is just one drawback to the picture, and that one draw- 
back is, that the man who stands upon the summit of 
the hill is blind. That is precisely the state of the case 
in reference to truth in the Bible. It is there in all its 
grandeur, but the man has no eyes to see it. Let the 
Spirit come and take the scales away and shred off the 
spiritual ophthalmia, and he sees the landscape stretch- 
ing before him in all its hues of beauty, and his soul is 
elevated and he feels the full rapture of the scene. 
Prevailing truth, therefore, is not of the letter but of 
the Spirit, for " the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth 



77 

life." This Spirit it is that is promised for the carrying 
out of the Gospel, and it therefore must be successful. 
I know there is a good deal of difficulty about his mode 
of procedure : God's word must be fulfilled, that is one 
thing ; man's freedom must be maintained, that is 
another thing. Man is a moral agent; God has en- 
dued him with talents and invested him with an im- 
mense delegation of power, and in the distribution of 
these talents -and in the exercise of that power, he has 
said, in effect, Let him alone ; he may do as he lists — 
just as he lists. He is allowed, for the present, to act 
as if he had no superior, but for all he is holden finally 
most strictly responsible. But no coercion is applied, 
no force is ever in any conceivable instance made use 
of. One of our most eloquent senators once said, that 
an Englishman's cottage was his castle. The winds 
may whistle through every crevice, and the rains pene- 
trate through every cranny, but into that cottage the 
monarch of England dare not enter against the cotter's 
will. That is just the state of the case between Christ 
and the human soul. He has such a respect for the 
will of that immortal tenant that he has placed within 
us, that he will never force an entrance. He will do 
everything else ; he will knock at the door — 

" He now stands knocking at the door 
Of every sinner's heart ; 
The worst need keep him out no more, 
Nor force him to depart." 

But he will not force an entrance. Often, disappointed 



78 

and grieved, he turns away from those whom he would 
fain have enriched and saved, saying, "Ye will not 
come unto me, that ye may have life." But notwith- 
standing all this formidable opposition, the Gospel, as 
the administration of God's truth, backed by the energy 
of the Holy Spirit, shall finally triumph. TV x e can con- 
ceive of no enemies more subtle, more malignant, more 
powerful than those which it has already encountered 
and vanquished. Memory cheers us onward and bids 
hope to smile. God is with the Gospel ; that is the 
great secret. She does not trust in her inherent energy ; 
she does not trust in her exquisite adaptation to man's 
every necessity and peril ; she does not trust in the in- 
defatigable and self-denying labors of her ministers ; 
God is with the Gospel, and under his guidance she 
shall march triumphantly forward, subjugating every 
enemy, acquiring a lodgment in every heart, reclaim- 
ing the world unto herself, until she has consummated 
her victory in the ecstasies of a renovated universe, and 
in that deep and solemn moment when the Son, who 
gave his life a ransom for al], shall see of the travail of 
his soul and be abundantly satisfied. O brethren ! what 
a comfortable doctrine is this ! If this Gospel is to be 
conducted from step to step in its progressive march to 
conquest, do you not see how it guarantees individual 
salvation and individual defence by the way? 

Where art thou in the chapel to-night (would that 
1 could discover thee !) timid and discouraged believer 
who art afraid of the fatigues of climbing the Hill 



THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY. 79 

Difficulty, and croucliest back abashed and cowering 
at sight of the lions in front of the Palace Beautiful ? 
Lift up thy head, be not discouraged ; thy sufficiency 
is of God. What frightens thee ? Affliction ? God is 
thy help. Persecution ? God is thy crown. Perplex- 
ity ? God is thy counsel. Death ? God is thy ever- 
lasting life. Only trust in God, and all shall be well. 
Life shall glide thee into death, and death shall glide 
thee into heaven. " Who (asks the exulting Apostle, 
in the 8th of Komans), who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, 
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" That is rather a 
dark catalogue ; but mark how the Apostle answers it : 
" Nay, in all these things we are more than conquer- 
ors." It is not a drawn battle ; night does not come 
on to separate the combatants ; we have not to send a 
herald, as they used to do in ancient warfare, to ask 
permission to bury our dead ; we do not come from the 
field with the dishonored banner trailing in the dust, 
and the armor hacked, scarred with the wounds we 
have gotten in the fight. " We are more than con- 
querors." Oh, the royalty of that language! — "more 
than conquerors, through him that hath loved us. For 
I am persuaded that neither death" — he puts that first, 
because it generally threatens believers most — " neither 
life," which is really a more solemn and a more peril- 
ous thing than death, rightly considered — "neither 
death, nor life, nor angels" — if any of them should for- 
get themselves so far as to come and preach another 



80 

Gospel and try to deceive the very ele6t — "neither 
principalities nor powers " — for although the captain 
of the hosts of darkness may plant all his most for- 
midable battery against us, he cannot shake the pali- 
sades of strong salvation, nor snatch away a solitary 
sheep from the fold of the great Shepherd. " No, nor 
things present" — though those things present may in- 
clude famine, nakedness, peril, and sword — "no, nor 
things to come" — though, in those things to come, 
there may be an originality of diabolism never dreamed 
of yet — " and no creature" — nothing but sin, and that 
is not a creature, that is a foul excrescence, a vile abor- 
tion upon the universe of God — keep clear of that — and 
"no creature shall be able to separate you from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Oh, 
the blessedness, the ineffable blessedness of being in 
the love of God ! The blessedness of an approving 
conscience, the blessedness of increasing knowledge, 
the blessedness of complete victory, the blessedness of 
Gospel peace, the blessedness of perfect love ! I do 
not know what that sea of glass means about which we 
read in the Revelation ; I do not pretend to an intimate 
acquaintance with Apocalyptic disclosures ; but I know 
nothing that can better image the deep, serene, repos- 
ing, kingly rapture of the spirit that has finished its 
course with joy. It is a sea of glass ; it hath no bil- 
lows; not a breath ever, by any possibility, ruffles it. 
And on this sea of glass, as on a wide and waveless 
ocean, the believer stands forever, chanting eternally 



81 

the song of Moses and the Lamb. Oh, lift up your 
heads and come back to Zion with singing, and let this 
be the burden of your song : 

11 Let doubt, then, and danger my progress oppose, 
They only make heaven more sweet at the close ; 
Afflictions may damp me, they cannot destroy, 
For one glimpse of His love turns them all into joy. 
And come joy, or come sorrow, whate'er may befall, 
One hour with my God will make up for it all." 

It were very little use our talking in this strain to 
you, if you were to find out, after all, that it was some 
aristocratical blessing, some privilege reserved only for 
the peerage of the faithful, for the favored ones in the 
family of the King of kings. 

II. I come, secondly, to notice the authority which 

BELIEVERS HAVE TO EXPECT THIS SUFFICIENCY FOR THEM- 
SELVES. And, very briefly, we have a right to expect 
it, because it is found and promised in the Bible. 
Every believer, the moment he becomes a believer, 
becomes an inheritor of the promises. The Bible is 
not my Bible, nor your Bible — it is our Bible. It is 
common property ; it belongs to the universal Church. 
We have no sympathy, of course, with those who 
would monopolize this sacred treasure, and keep this 
light of the Gospel burning, and that, with a precious 
dimness, only in the study of the priest, or fettered, as 
it used to be, like a curiosity, to the altars of the 
Church. Thank God, these days of darkness are for- 



82 the believer's sufficiency. 

ever gone by. And yet there is a Church, somewhere, 
professedly Christian, which denies to its members the 
light and comfort of the Bible, in direct opposition to 
the command of Him who has said to every one, 
" Search the Scriptures," thus most absolutely exalting 
itself against all that is called God. Oh, most foul 
corruption ! Deprive us of the Bible ! As well forbid 
us to gaze on the jewelled sky, or to be fanned by the 
winged and searching air. Deprive us of the Bible ! 
Call it sin for us to look at the sun, and to bask in the 
blaze of his enlivening beams. The very same hand 
which launched yon orb upon his ocean of light, and 
bade him shine upon the evil and upon the good, has 
sent this orb into the world, and has sent it on purpose 
that it may be a lamp to all our feet and a lantern to 
all our paths. We devoutly thank the good Spirit of 
the Lord, that he put into the minds of our forefathers 
to protest against so flagrant and monstrous an im- 
piety ; and, thank God, we are Protest-ants still. We 
cannot afford to be thus robbed of our birthright, to 
be thus cheated out of our inheritance, to be thus 
basely swindled out of the possession of the Book of 
God. It is the legacy of the Apostles' labor ; the bul- 
wark of the confessors' faith ; the purchase of the mar- 
tyrs' blood. Thank God for the Bible. Let us prove 
that we love it, by drawing from it all the comfort and 
blessing, and guidance, and warning, which its heaven- 
inspired pages are calculated to afford. "Well, we have 
a right, each of us — if we are in Christ — we have a 



THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY. 83 

right to expect this sufficiency, because it is promised 
in the Bible. We gather it from the declarations of 
Scripture. Listen to them, they are yours : " Thus 
saith the Lord who created thee, O Jacob, who formed 
thee, O Israel, Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have 
called thee by thy name" "What a beautiful thought 
that is ! Just get the meaning and beauty out of it. 
How many thousands of believers, thousands upon 
thousands of believers, have there been in the world 
from the beginning of its history until now — thousands 
in the patriarchal ages who looked through the glass, 
and who saw, dimly, the streak of the morning in the 
distance, and, even with that streak of light, were glad 
— thousands, in the prophetical times, who discerned it 
in the brightness of a nearer vision — thousands who 
basked in its full-orbed lustre, when Christ came into 
the world — thousands upon thousands, since that time, 
who have washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb — thousands, who are now upon 
the earth, working out their salvation with fear and 
trembling — thousands upon thousands that shall come 
into the Church in the time of its millennial glory, 
when the gates of it shall not be shut day nor night, 
because the porter shall have no chance of shutting 
them, the people crowd in so fast. Now, get all that 
mass of believers, past, present, and future, a company 
that no man can number ; and to each of them God 
comes in this promise, and says, "I have called thee 
by thy name, I know all about thee' — that is, I have 



84 the believer's sufficiency. 

not a merely vague, indefinite knowledge of thee ; as 
an individual believer I know thy name, I could single 
thee out of millions, I could tell the world all thy soli- 
citudes, and all thy apprehensions, and all thy hopes, 
and all thy sorrows — "I have called thee by thy name." 
Oh, precious promise ! Take it to your hearts. " I 
have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine ; when 
thou passest through the waters I will be with thee ; 
and through the rivers" — deeper than the waters — 
" they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest 
through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall 
the flames kindle upon thee." Listen again : " The 
Lord God is a sun and a shield" — light and protection ; 
that nearly embraces all our wants — "he will give 
grace and glory." Is there anything left out? And 
if there are any of you so perversely clever and so mis- 
chievously ingenious in multiplying arguments in favor 
of your own despair, that you can conceive of some 
rare and precious blessing that is not wrapped up 
either in grace or glory — " ISTo good thing will he 
withhold from them that walk uprightly." "Fear 
not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am 
thy God." "Cast all thy care"— " Nay," the rebel 
heart says, "there is some little of it I must bear 
myself; something that has reference to the heart's 
bitterness, that it alone knoweth ; or to the heart's 
deep, dark sorrow, with which no stranger intermed- 
dles — that I must bear myself." " Cast all thy care 
upon me, for I care for thee." What ! distrustful still ? 



85 

Can you not take God at his word ? Hark ! lie con- 
descends to expostulate with you upon your unbelief : 
"Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, 
my way is hid from the Lord" — how often have you 
said that in the time of your sorrow ! you know you 
have — " my way is hid from the Lord, my judgment 
is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known, 
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the 
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faint eth not, 
neither is weary? There is no searching of his under- 
standing. He giveth power to the faint." He does 
not merely take his swoon away and leave him weakly, 
he makes him strong. " He giveth power to the faint ; 
and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." 
Are you still dissatisfied ? 

The God who knows human nature, knows how much 
better a teacher example is than precept, and so, spark- 
ling upon the pages of his holy truth, he has left us 
many bright instances of his interposition on behalf of 
his saints. Abraham rises early in the morning, goes a 
three days' journey with the son of his love, intending 
all the while, with set and resolute purpose, to offer him 
in sacrifice to the God of heaven. Arrived at the place 
of their destination, all the ritual preparations are made: 
the altar is prepared ; the willing victim, unresisting, is 
bound ; the sacrificial knife is lifted ; no escape, then, 
surely ! But man's extremity is God's opportunity, and 
the ram is caught in the thicket by its horns, and God's 
grace is sufficient — none too much — but sufficient still. 



86 

The children of Israel are brought to the borders of the 
Red Sea, hotly pursued by the flower of the Egyptian 
army ; the troops are close upon them in the rear ; the 
Red Sea stretches before them — the inaccessible hills of 
Baal-Zephon tower on the right hand and on the left. 
What are they to do ? There seems no possible chance 
of escape. Oh ! what are the laws of gravitation when 
the Lord works for his people 1 He who made them can 
alter them at pleasure. The waters erect themselves on 
either hand, and the bed of the ocean is their triumphal 
pathway. God's grace is sufficient still. Xehemiah. 
like a true-hearted patriot as he was, set to work to 
rebuild the dilapidated walls of Jerusalem. But he 
began, like some of his successors, in troublous times ; 
Sanbailat and Tobiah came to fight against the workmen ; 
they were so hard beset, that they had to work with 
sword in the one hand and trowel in the other ; God's 
grace was sufficient, and the second Jerusalem rose up 
in majesty upon the site of the ruins of the first. 
"What ! not satisfied yet ? Surely that must be an 
almost invincible unbelief that these instances will not 
overcome. What is it you say ? " Oh, but these are 
all instances taken from the Old Testament times ; the 
age of miracles is over now — we are not now to expect 
such interpositions on behalf of God's people." Well, 
let us try again. Come out of the light of Scripture a 
little into the light of common life. Tread softly, as you 
enter that house, for it is a house of mourning ; a large 
family surround the bedside of a dying parent ; that 



8T 

parent is a Christian, and knowing in whom he has 
believed, he is not afraid to die. But he has a large 
family, and the thought that he shall leave them with- 
out a protector, the thought of the forcible disruption 
of all social ties, presses upon his spirit, and when you 
look at him, there is a shade of sadness upon his coun- 
tenance ; but you gaze awhile, and you see that sadness 
chased away by a smile. What has wrought the 
change 1 What ? Why, a ministering angel whispered 
to him : " Leave thy fatherless children; I will preserve 
them alive." He hails the promiser. Faith cries out : 
" It is he, it is he ; my God is present here." He 
enjoys rapt and high communion with celestial visit- 
ants, and thus that chamber of death becomes the gate 
of heaven. You pass by that house next morning : the 
half-closed shutter and the drawn blind tell you that he 
was and is not. You enter — the widow is sitting in sor- 
row ; the first deep pang is scarcely over. The tones 
of her husband's voice, with which she has so long been 
familiar, rush, in all the freshness of yesterday, upon 
her soul, and she is worn with weeping. But she, too, 
is a Christian, and she flies to the Christian's refuge, and 
her eye traces those comfortable words : u Thy Maker 
is thine husband — the Lord of Hosts is his name." It is 
a dark hour ; it has been a dark day ; and the darkness 
has gathered, and settled, and deepened as the day wore 
on, and now at eventide there is soft and brilliant light, 
because her sufficiency is of God. You pass by the 
house again when about a week has elapsed. The last 



88 the believer's sufficiency. 

sad rites have been performed ; the funeral bell, with its 
suppressed and heavy summons, sounding like the 
dividing asunder of soul and body, has tolled ; the very 
clay of her husband has been torn from her embrace. 
He has died in somewhat straitened circumstances ; he 
was the sole dependence of the family, and, with aching- 
head and throbbing heart, she sits down to calculate 
about her future subsistence ; her heart begins to fail 
her, but, before she gives way to despair, she consults a 
friend ; he is a wise man, one upon whom the influences 
of the Holy Spirit have operated long ; and he gives 
her the testimony of a long life of experience : " I have 
been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the 
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Dash- 
ing away the tears that had blinded her, she struggles 
and labors on, and feels that though it is her darkest 
hour, her sufficiency is still of God. That is no uncom- 
mon case ; I have not drawn largely upon the extrava- 
gance of an imaginative fancy to bring it out. I could 
go into many of our sanctuaries and bid you listen to 
one, as w T ith a glad heart and free, he sings the con- 
verted sinner's anthem : "O Lord, I will praise thee ; 
thou wast angry w T ith me, but thine anger is turned 
away, and now thou comfortest me." Then I could bid 
you listen to the experience of another, but faltering 
and low, for he is just recovering from recent illness : 
" I was brought low, and he helped me ; he saved me 
even from the gates of death." And then we could 
point you to a third, and say : " This poor man cried. 



89 

and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his 
troubles." And where are the damnatory clauses that 
forbid you to partake of these blessings ? "What statute 
of limitations is there that bars you from the enjoyment 
of this great and gracious heritage ? Brethren, are you 
in Christ? Then all that belongs to the covenant is 
yours. Yours is the present heritage, yours is the future 
recompense of reward. 

" Our sufficiency is of God." Is it so ? Then you 
will be sustained in trial ; you won't succumb to its 
power ; it won't over-master you ; you will regard it as 
sent of God, intended to work lessons and changes of 
some providential discipline within you. You will be 
grateful for it ; you will know that when it comes, 
although it looks harsh and repulsive outside, you have 
entertained angels unawares, you will find after it has 
gone away. Oh ! we learn many lessons when the 
head is low, that we do not learn in the heyday of pros- 
perity and blessing. Just as it is in the natural world : 
you know when the sun is set, the stars come out in 
their placid beauty, and 

" Darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day ;" 

and we should never have known they were there if the 
darkness had not come. So in the night of God's pro- 
vidential dispensations, the stars of the great promises 
come shining out, broad and bright upon the soul ; and 
we rejoice in their light and go on our way rejoicing. 



90 

Or, changing the figure, in the glad summer-time, when 
the leaves are on the trees, we go out, such of us as can 
get into the country — we go out into the thick woods 
and walk under the trees in shadow, and their branches 
interlace above us, and the leaves are green and glossy, 
and so thick above that we cannot see the sky through ; 
and then we forget that there is another world, and our 
hearts are revelling in all pleasure and all blessedness 
of this. But when the blasts of winter come and scatter 
the leaves down, then the light of heaven comes in 
between, and we remember that here we have no 
continuing city, and are urged to seek one that is to 
come. Oh ! take hold of God's sufficiency then, and 
go bravely to the meeting of trial, and you will find 
that trial, 

" God's alchemist old, 
Purges off the dross and mold 
And leaves us rich with gems and gold." 

Is your sufficiency of God ? Then it will animate you 
to duty. Listen to this confession of weakness : " Unto 
me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace 
given." Less than the least ! "What a pressure of weak- 
ness there must have been upon that soul ! Listen to 
this exulting consciousness of power: "I can do all 
things through Christ that strengtheneth me." They 
are the antipodes of sentiment — are they not ? Weak- 
ness the most helpless and feeble — power the most 
exultant and proud; and yet that confession of weak- 
ness, and that exulting consciousness of power, were the 



THE BELIEVERS SUFFICIENCY. 91 

utterance of the same lips, and the expression of the 
experience of the same individual. What made the 
difference? In the one case he relied upon his own re- 
sources ; in the other, he took hold of the sufficiency of 
God. Take hold of the sufficiency of Gocl, and nothing 
will be able to resist you ; you will go forward strong 
in the Lord, and in the power of his might, overcoming 
sin and overcoming evil in its every form, and planting 
for yourself and for your Master an heritage of blessing 
in this world and in that which is to come. 

a Our sufficiency is of God." Is there a poor strag- 
gling sinner that is rejoicing to think that the minister 
has forgotten him, and that while he has been endeavor- 
ing to bring out all the heart of the text — privilege and 
promise exceeding great and precious, for the benefit of 
believers — no word of warning can be extracted out of 
it for those that are yet ungodly? Wait a little. 
What is the lesson you are to learn from the sub- 
ject? Just this: that there is a sufficiency in God to 
punish. All his attributes must be equally perfect. 
He must be just, as well as the free and generous 
justiiier of him that believeth in Jesus. Oh, I beseech 
you, tempt not against yourselves that wrath which 
needs only to be kindled in order to burn unto the 
lowest hell. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and 
ye perish from the way." Perish out of the way — 
just as men fling away any obstacle or hindrance that 
interrupts their progress, so shall God fling the wicked 
out of his way. u E~iss the Son, lest he be angry, and 



92 

ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but 
a little. But a little — oh, it will need but a little kin- 
dling to doom you to the perdition of hell. Brethren, 
you need not perish : there is a sufficiency, thank God ! 
there is a sufficiency in Christ to save. Our sufficiency 
is of God. And with this promise that I fling forth 
into the midst of you, and pray that God would bind it 
as a spell of sweet enchantment on your souls, I close 
my words to-night : " Wherefore he is able to save unto 
the uttermost" — to the uttermost of human guilt — to 
the uttermost of human life — to the uttermost of human 
time. May God save your souls, for the Redeemer's 
sake! 



III. 

THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

" Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, 
we faint not ; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not 
walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully ; but by 
manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's con- 
science in the sight of God." — 2 Cor. iv. 1, 2. 

This is the Apostle's recorded judgment as to the 
mission of the ministry which he had received of the 
Lord Jesus, and the duties of which he discharged with 
such singular fidelity and zeal. In the preceding chap- 
ter, he magnifies its superiority alike of glory and of 
substantial usefulness over the dispensation of the law, 
and then in a few weighty words separates himself en- 
tirely from all false teachers, and establishes himself, 
upon the ground of holy character and exalted office, as 
Heaven's high remembrancer among the nations — a 
true witness for God amidst a dark and alien world. 
He takes care, at the very outset, to assure those to 
whom he speaks, that he is of the same nature, and 
originally of the same sinfulness, as themselves : " There- 
fore seeing that we have received this ministry, as we 
have received mercy, we faint not." We are not — as if 



94 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

he had said — a distinct order of beings: there is no 
natural superiority of character which might make the 
minister proud, or which might make the hearer distant, 
and callous, and unsympathizing. TTe once were sin- 
ners ; we have yet the memory of bondage ; we have 
received mercy, and are anxious to tell to others the 
tidings that have led to our redemption. As Ave have 
received mercy we faint not, but have renounced the 
hidden things of dishonesty, the secret immoralities of 
pagan priests ; not walking in craftiness, not retaining 
our hold upon the consciences of men by deceivableness 
of unrighteousness, and by juggling, lying wonders ; not 
handling the Word of God deceitfully, not preaching an 
adulterated truth or a flexible Gospel ; not pliant to the 
prejudices, or silent to the vices of those who hear us; 
" but, by manifestation of the truth, commending our- 
selves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." 

All this, affirmed by the Apostle of the ministry of 
olden time, may be affirmed of the ministry of recon- 
ciliation now. That ministry, wickedly maligned on 
the one hand, imperfectly fulfilled on the other hand, 
has yet its mission to the world. The unrepealed com- 
mand still stands upon the statute-book : " Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the Gospel unto every crea- 
ture." And it is a prayer often earnestly and passion- 
ately uttered by those on whom its obligations have 
fallen, that, repudiating artifice and idleness, they may, 
by manifestation of the truth, commend themselves to 
every man's conscience in the sight of God. I purpose. 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 95 

God helping me, briefly to notice from these words — in 
tlie first place, the business of the ministry ; secondly, 
the instrumentality which it employs ; and thirdly, the 
thought that hallows it. 

I. The ministry — this is my first position — has a busi- 
ness with the world. It is the Divinely-appointed 
agency for the communication of God's will to man. 
As a Divine institution it advanced its claims in the 
beginning, and in no solitary instance have they been 
relinquished since. This Divine authorization and en- 
actment are still in force. The Bible says, when Christ- 
ascended np on high, "he led captivity captive, and 
received gifts for men ; and he gave some apostles, and 
some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors 
and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ." There might be something special, perhaps, in 
this original commission, but the principle of its Divine 
origin is evidently presented as the principle of the 
ministry itself; for St. Paul, who was not then called, 
who speaks of himself afterward as one born out of due 
time, earnestly and anxiously vindicates the Heavenly 
origin of his apostleship : " I certify you, brethren, that 
the Gospel which was preached of me is not of men ; for 
I neither received it of men, neither was I taught it but 
by the revelation of Jesus Christ." This it is which is 
the elevation of the Christian ministry, which exalts it 
far above human resources and human authority. It 
travels on in its own majestic strength — Heaven-inspired 



96 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

and heaven-sustained. Moreover, the same passage 
which tells us of the institution of the ministry an- 
nounces its duration, and tells of the period when it 
shall be no longer needed — till we all come, in the unity 
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man — unto the measure of the stature of 
the fullness of Christ. 

This period, thus divinely appointed for the cessation 
of the ministry, has obviously not yet arrived. The 
world sees but little yet of millennial glory ; there is 
yet an alienated heart in its debased and rebel tribes ; 
there is nothing in the pursuits which it follows, nor in 
the natural impulses which move it, to incite to holy 
aim or to induce spiritual living. It has no self-sugges- 
tive memory of God. It has passions as blind and 
powerful, and a will as perverse as ever. Death is in 
the midst of it, and, though the corpse may be some- 
times embalmed with spices, or tricked out with flowers, 
or carried 'neath obsequious plumes to burial, the chill 
is at its heart, the breath of the plague is in the tainted 
air, and there is need, strong and solemn need, for the 
anointed witness who may stand between the living and 
the dead, that the plague may be stayed. There are 
some, I know, who tell us that the mission of the pulpit 
is fulfilled. They acknowledge that, in the earlier 
ages, in the times of comparative darkness, when men 
spelt out the truth in syllables, it did a noble work ; 
but the world has outgrown it, they tell us ; men need 
neither its light nor its warning ; the all-powerful Press 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 07 

shall direct them, the educational institute shall assist 
them in their upward progress, they shall' move onward 
and upward under the guidance of the common mind. 
And, while this is the cry of infidelity and indifferent- 
ism, there are some among ourselves who have partially 
yielded to the clamor. They have deplored (as who 
must not?) the apparent ineffectiveness of existing 
agencies, the feebleness of the efforts for evangelical 
aggression, and, in their eagerness to conciliate preju- 
dice and disarm opposition, they have compromised 
somewhat the high tone of Christian teaching, and 
have studiously avoided the very terminology of the 
Bible, so that the great truths of God's will and man's 
duty, of Christ's atonement and the sinner's pardon, of 
the Spirit's work and the believer's growth — those old 
gospels whose sound is always music and whose sight is 
always joy, are hardly to be recognized, as they are 
hidden beneath profound thought, or veiled within 
affected phrase. But the Divine institution of the 
ministry is not to be thus superseded. It has to do 
with eternity, and the matters of eternity are para- 
mount. It deals and would grapple with the inner 
man ; it has to do with the deepest emotions of the 
nature, with those instincts of internal truths which 
underlie all systems, from which a man can never 
utterly divorce himself, and which God himself has 
graven on the soul. So far as they work in harmony 
with its high purpose, it will hail the helpings of all 
other teaching ; but God hath given it the monarchy, 



98 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

and it dare not abdicate its throne. The opposition 
that you sometimes meet with of worldliness and infi- 
delity to the pulpit, if you analyze it, you find that 
though it may have derived from the oppressions of 
priestcraft in bygone ages somewhat of plausibility and 
force, it is but one phase of the method in which the 
human heart discovers its rooted and apparently uncon- 
querable enmity to God. Hence it is one of the worst 
symptoms of the disease which the ministry has been 
calculated and instituted to remove. The teaching of 
the political agitator, of the philanthropic idealist, of 
the benevolent instructor — why are they so popular ? 
The teaching of the religious minister — why is it so 
repulsive to the world ? Mainly from this one fact, 
that the one reproves, and the other exalts human 
nature — the one ignores, the other insists upon the doc- 
trine of the Fall. You will find, in all the schemes for 
the uplifting of man not grounded on the Bible, the 
exaltation of his nature as it is, lofty ideas of perfect- 
ibility, assertions that it needs neither revelation nor 
heavenly influence to guide it in the way of truth. 
Thus the Gospel is presented only as one among many 
systems which all men may accept or reject at pleasure. 
Its restraints are deemed impertinence, its reproofs 
unnatural bondage. The talk of such teaching is fre- 
quently of rights, seldom of duties. They are compli- 
mented on their manliness who ought to be humbled 
for their sin, and, by insidious panderings to their pride, 
they are exhorted to atheism, self-reliance, or habitual 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 99 

disregard of God. Both kinds of teaching, the worldly 
and the religious alike, aim at the uplifting of the 
nature. But then they look at it from different stand- 
points, and, of course, they apply to it different treat- 
ment. The one is an endeavor to exalt the nature 
without God ; the other would take hold of his strength 
and work to the praise of his glory. The one regards 
humanity as it once was before sin had warped it, able 
to tower and triumph in its own unaided strength — the 
other sees it decrepit or ailing, the whole head sick 
and the whole heart faint ; and yet, by the balm of 
Gilead, to be restored to pristine vigor. The one, 
deeming that no confusion has come upon its language, 
nor shame upon its many builders, would have it pile up 
its Babel towers until they smite the skies — the other 
sees the towers in ruins, splintered shaft and crumbling 
arch bearing witness that they were once beautiful 
exceedingly, and that by the grace and skill of the 
heavenly Architect, they may grow up again into a 
holy temple in the Lord. 

It is absolutely necessary, in this age of manifold 
activities and of spiritual pride, that there should be 
this ever-speaking witness of man's feebleness and of 
God's strength. And, however much the opposition 
against the ministry may tell, and it does tell, and it 
ought to tell, against the vapid and frivolous, against 
the idle and insincere, it is a powerful motive for the 
institution of the ministry itself ; just as the blast that 
scatters the acorns, roots the oak the more firmly in 



100 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

the soil. So long as men are born to die, so long as the 
recording angel registers human guilt, so ]ong as human 
responsibility and retribution are unheeded truths, so 
long as there is one solitary sinner tempted by the 
black adversary, so long will the ministry have a busi- 
ness with the world ; and it is the earnest prayer of 
those who have undertaken it that they may in some 
humble measure, in all fidelity and with dauntless 
courage, with genial sympathy, with pure affection, be 
witnesses for God, like that glorious angel whom the 
evangelist saw with the light upon his wings, having 
the everlasting Gospel to preach unto every nation and 
people and tongue. 

II. I observe, secondly, the business of the ministry 
is mainly with the conscience of men. Every man 
has a conscience ; that is, a natural sense of the diffe- 
rence between good and evil — a principle which does 
not concern itself so much with the true and false in 
human ethics y or with the gainful and damaging in 
human fortunes, as with the right and wrong in human 
conduct. Call it what you will, analyze it as you may 
— a faculty, an emotion, a law — it is the most important 
principle in our nature, because by it we are brought 
into sensible connection with,, and sensible recognition 
of, the moral government of God. It has been defined 
sometimes as a tribunal within a man for his own daily 
and impartial trial; and in its various aspects it answers 
right well to all the parts of a judicial tribunal. It is 
the bar at which the sinner pleads; it prefers the accu* 



THE MISSION OF THE TULPIT. 101 

sation of transgression ; it records the crime ; it bears 
witness to guilt or innocence ; and as a judge it acquits 
or condemns. Tims taking cognizance of moral actions, 
it is the faculty which relates ns to the other world ; 
and by it God, retribution, eternity, are made abiding 
realities to the soul. As by the physical senses we are 
brought into connection with the physical world, and 
the blue heavens over it, and the green earth around 
us, are recognized in their relation to ourselves ; so by 
this moral sense of conscience we see ourselves, in the 
light of immortality, responsible creatures, and gain 
ideas of duty and of God. How mighty is the influ- 
ence which this power has wielded, and yet continues 
to wield in the world ! There are many that have tried 
to be rid of it, but there is a manhood at its heart which 
murder cannot kill. There are many that have rebelled 
against its authority, but they have acknowledged its 
might notwithstanding, and it has rendered them dis- 
turbed and uneasy in their sin. There are multitudes 
more that have fretted against its wholesome warnings ; 
and often when — because it has warned them of danger 
or threatened them with penalty — they have tried to. 
stifle and entomb it, it has risen up suddenly into a 
braver resurrection, and pealed forth its remonstrances 
in bolder port and louder tone. But for its restraint, 
many of the world's reputable ones would have become 
criminal. But for its restraint, many of the world's 
criminals would have become more audaciously bad. 
It has spoken, and the felon, fleeing when no man pur- 



102 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

sued him, has been chased by a falling leaf. It has 
spoken, and the burglar has paled behind his mask, 
startled at his own footfall. It has spoken, and the 
coward assassin has been arrested in his purpose, and 
has paused irresolute ere he has struck the blow. Its 
vindictive and severe upbraiding after the sin has been 
committed has often lashed the sinner into agony, and 
secured an interval of comparative morality by pre- 
venting sin for a season. It has been the one witness 
for God amid the traitor faculties — single but undis- 
mayed, solitary but true. When the understanding 
and the memory, and the will and the affections, had 
all consented to the enticements of evil, conscience has 
stood firm, and the man could never sin with comfort 
until he had drugged it into desperate repose. It has 
been the one dissentient power among the faculties, 
like a moody guest among a company of frantic revel- 
lers, whom they could neither conciliate nor expel. 
When God's judgments have been abroad in the world, 
and men would fain have resolved them into ordinary 
occurrences or natural phenomena, conscience has 
refused to be satisfied with such delusive interpreta- 
tions, and, without a prophet's inspiration, has itself 
deciphered the handwriting as it blazed upon the wall. 
It has forced the criminal oftentimes to deliver himself 
up to justice, preferring the public shame of the trial 
and the gallows-tree to the deeper hell of a conscience 
aroused and angry. Yes, and it has constrained from 
the dying sinner a testimonv to the God he has insulted, 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 103 

given when the shadows of perdition were already 
darkening upon the branded brow. 

Oh, brethren, that must be a mighty power which 
has wrought and which is working thus ! And it has 
wrought and is working in you ; and, as such, we 
acknowledge it. "We can despise no man who has a 
conscience. Although with meanness and with sin he 
may largely overlay it, we recognize the majestic and 
insulted guest, and are silent and respectful as in the 
presence of a fallen king. "We see the family-likeness, 
although intemperance has bloated the features and has 
dulled the sparkle of the eye. There is a spirit in man, 
and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him under- 
standing. Now it is with this faculty in man that the 
minister has mainly to do. His work, his business, is to 
bring out the world's conscience in its answer to the 
truths of Divine revelation. Recognizing in it some- 
thing which can respond to its own duty, the minister- 
ing witness without will constantly appeal to the 
answering witness within. Regarding all other facul- 
ties, however separately noticeable, as avenues only to 
the conscience, he will aim constantly at the ears of the 
inner man. To come short of this is to come short of 
duty. To fail in this is to fail in a work which our 
Master has given us to do. "We should form but a very 
unworthy estimate of our own high calling if we were 
to aim at the subjugation of any subordinate faculty, 
and, that accomplished, sit down as if our work were 
done. The minister may appeal to the intellect — of 



104r THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

course lie may. All thanks to him if he clear away dif- 
ficulties from the path of the bewildered. All thanks 
to him if he present truth in its symmetry of system, 
and in all the grand and rounded harmony of its beau- 
tiful design. But he must press through the outworks 
to the citadel, through the intellect to the conscience, 
that the understanding, no longer darkened, may appre- 
hend the truth, and that the apprehended truth may 
make the conscience free. The imagination may be 
charmed by the truth, which is itself beauty ; but only 
that it may hold the mirror up to conscience, to see its 
own portrait there photographed directly from on high, 
and which, with such marvellous fidelity, gives all the 
scars upon the countenance, and every spot and wrinkle 
upon the brow. The passions may be roused by the 
truth, which is the highest power — not that people may 
swoon away under terrific apprehensions of wrath, or 
only or mainly that people may escape hell and enter 
heaven, but that the conscience may resolve on a holy 
life, that there may result the comely outgrowth of a 
transformed and spiritual character, and that through 
the impending fear of perdition and the promised water 
of life, a man may issue into the wealthy place of con- 
fidence in God, assimilation to his image, that attach- 
ment to right which would cleave fast to it, even were 
its cause hopeless and its friends dead, and that perfect 
love which casteth out all p6ssible fear. 

It is not the intellect, then, but the conscience — not 
the imagination, but the conscience — not the passions, 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 105 

but the conscience — to which the minister is to com- 
mend himself in the sight of God. If he speaks to the 
intellect, the philosopher can rival him. If he speaks to 
the imagination, his brightest efforts pale before the 
dazzling images of the poet's brain. If he speaks to the 
passions, the political demagogue can do it better. But, 
in his power over the conscience, he has a power that 
no man shares. An autocrat undisputed, a czar of many 
lands, he can wield the sceptre over the master-faculty 
of man. Oh ! very solemn is the responsibility which 
thus rests upon the religious teacher. To have the 
master-faculty of man within his grasp ; to witness of 
truths that are unpopular and repulsive ; to reprove of 
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment ; to do this 
with his own heart frail and erring, with the moral con- 
flict battling in his own spirit the while. " Who is 
sufficient for these things V breaks often from the man- 
liest heart in its seasons of depression and unrest. But 
there is a comfort broad and strong, and I feel that com- 
fort now supporting me. While pained by my own 
unworthiness, and by the trifling of multitudes over 
whom ministers weep and yearn — pained by the short- 
sighted and self-complacent indifference of the church 
and the world — pained by the thousand difficulties 
which Satan always puts in the way of the reception of 
the truth as it is in Jesus ; I say there is a comfort of 
which I cannot be deprived : that all the while there is 
a mysterious something moving in you — in you all — 
barbing the faithful appeal, pointing the solemn warn- 



106 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

ing, striking the alarum in the sinner's soul. There ! 
listen to that ! That belongs to thee. That heart so 
callous and ungrateful — it is thine. That sin that the 
minister reproves — thou hast committed it. That doom 
so full of agony and horror — thou art speeding to it. 
How wilt thou escape the damnation of hell ? Many a 
time and oft, when the minister without has gone 
sheafless to his home, and in tears has offered his 
complaint, " Who hath believed our report ?" the min- 
ister within, by God's good grace, has been a successful 
harvest-man, and gathered sheaves into the garner ; and 
often when, to the eye of the human minister, there has 
been no ripple on the waves, deep in the depths of the 
soul have swelled the billows of the troubled sea ; and 
in the keenest acknowledgment of the truth he was 
endeavoring to impress, men's consciences have borne 
him witness, their thoughts meanwhile accusing, or else 
excusing one another. 

Again, the great instrumentality which God has 
empowered us to use is the truth. You will have no 
difficulty in understanding what the Apostle means by 
the truth, because he calls it " the word of grace," and 
" our Gospel." The revelation of God in Christ, the 
life and teaching and wondrous death of Jesus, was the 
truth, alone adapted to the supply of every need, and 
the rescue from every peril. The Apostle was no ordi- 
nary man. "Well-read in 'the literature of the times, 
observant of the tendencies and the inclinations of man, 
he would be ready to acknowledge truth everywhere. 



THE MISSION OF THE PDLPIT. 107 

He knew that there had been truth in the world before. 
He would see it in Pagan systems, gleaming faintly 
through encumbered darkness. Fragments of it had 
fallen from philosophers in former times, and had been 
treasured up as wisdom. It had a somewhat healthy 
circulation through the household impulses and ordinary 
concerns of men. But it was all truth for the intellect, 
truth for social life, truth for the manward, not the God- 
ward relations of the soul. The truth which told of 
God, which hallowed all morality by the sanctions of 
Divine law, which provided for the necessities of the 
entire man, was seen but dimly in uncertain traditions. 
Conscience was a slave. If it essayed to speak, it was 
overdone by clamor, or hushed by interest into silence. 
The higher rose the culture, the deeper sank the charac- 
ter. The whole world seemed like one vast valley, 
fertile and gay with flowers, but no motion in the dumb 
air, not any song of bird or sound of rill ; the gross 
darkness of the inner sepulchre was not so deadly still, 
until there came down a breath from heaven that 
brought life upon its wings, and breathed that life into 
the unconscious heaps of slain. - Thus, when Christ 
came with his Gospel of purity and freedom, all other 
truth seemed to borrow from it a clearer light and a 
richer adaptation. The ordinary instincts of right 
and wrong were sharpened into a keener discernmert, 
and invested with a more spiritual sensibility. Ti e 
Gospel founded a grander morality ; the Gospel ests >- 
lished a more chivalrous honor ; the Gospel shed out i 



108 THE MISSION OF THE PDLPIT. 

more genial benevolence. All the old systems had 
looked at man as a half-man ; only on one side of his 
nature ; that part of him that lay down to the earth. 
The Gospel took the whole round of his faculties, both 
as lying toward earth and as rising toward heaven. 
Love to man — the ordinary, commonplace philanthropy 
of every day, the philanthropy that wings the feet of 
the good Samaritan, and that sends all the almsgivers 
upon errands of mercy — love to man was not known in 
its fullness, until the Gospel came. " Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor " was a command of old, but then the 
Jews first contracted the neighborhood, and then they 
contracted the affection. The Jew's neighbor was not 
the Samaritan, but one within his own exclusive pale 
and sphere. But when love to God came, like a queenly 
mother leading out her daughter by the hand, then men 
wondered at the rare and radiant beauty that had 
escaped their notice so long ; and when they loved God 
first, then it was that from that master-love the streams 
of love to man flowed forth in ceaseless and in generous 
profusion. And the Gospel is just the same now. It is 
the great inspiration of ordinary kindnesses, and of the 
every-day and rippling happiness of life. It is the truth 
for man ; the truth for man's every exigency, and for 
his very peril — blessing the body and saving the soul. 
By the truth, then, which we are to commend to every 
man's conscience, we understand the truth as it is in 
Jesus — the truth which convinces of sin and humbles 
under a sense of it ; the truth which reveals atonement 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 109 

and flashes pardon from it ; the truth which leads the 
pardoned spirit upward to holiness and heaven. Now, 
we are to bring that conscience and that truth into con- 
nection with each other ; that is the great business for 
which we are gathered here. In order that there may 
be the bringing of the one into connection with the 
other, there must be variety in all truth, suited to the 
various states in which the conscience of the hearers 
may be found. 

JSTow, for the sake of argument, we may take it that 
there are three stages in which nearly the whole of the 
consciences of humanity are ranged : those whose con- 
sciences are slumbering, torpid, inert, lifeless ; those 
whose consciences are quick, apprehensive, alarmed ; 
and those whose consciences have passed through those 
former stages, and are now peaceful, happy, and at rest. 

1. First, there are some consciences that have no appre- 
hension of God — no spiritual sensibility at all. It is a 
very sad thought that this has been, and continues to 
be, the condition of the vast majority of mankind. 
Think of the vast domain of paganism, where the truth 
of God is lost for lack of knowledge, with its monstrous 
idols, fertile of cruelty, and its characters exemplifying 
every variety of evil. You may look through universal 
history ; you can see the track of passion in the light of 
the flames which it has kindled ; you can see the works 
of imagination throned in bodiless thought, or sculptured 
in breathing marble ; you can see the many inventions 
of intellect on every hand, but for conscience placed on 



110 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 

its rightful seat, and exerting its legitimate authority, 
you look almost in vain. Even in Christian England 
there are multitudes of whom it may be said that God 
is not in all their thoughts, to whom conscience is a dull 
and drowsy monitor, who live on from day to day in 
the disregard of plainest duties, and in habitual, harden- 
ing sin. Are there not some here ? It may be you go 
to your place of worship, but to little purpose ; you are 
rarely missed from your accustomed seat, but you have 
trifled with conscience until it rarely troubles you, and 
when it does, you pooh-pooh it as the incoherences of a 
drunkard, or the ravings of some frantic madman. 
Brethren, I do feel it a solemn duty to manifest God's 
arousing truth to you. I appeal to the moral sense 
within you. You are attentive to the truth ; the "Word 
is suffered to play around your understanding ; I want 
it to go deeper. I accuse you fearlessly of heinous and 
flagrant transgression, because you have not humbled 
yourselves before Heaven; and God, in whose hands 
your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have 
not glorified. I charge you with living to yourselves, or 
that, going about to establish your own righteousness, 
you have not submitted yourself to the righteousness of 
God. I arraign you as being guilty of base ingratitude, 
inasmuch as when Christ was offered, the just for the 
unjust, that he might bring you to God, you refused to 
hearken. And you have trodden under foot the blood 
of the covenant, and counted it an unholy thing. I 
accuse some of you, moreover, of trying to secure im- 






THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. Ill 

punity by your vile treatment of God's inward witness. 
You have deposed conscience from its throne ; you have 
tried to bribe it to be a participator with you in your 
crimes ; you have overborne it by interest, or business, 
or clamor, or pleasure ; you have limited its scrutiny to 
the external actions, and not allowed it to sit in judg- 
ment over the thoughts and intentions of the inner 
man. When it has startled you, you have lulled it to 
sleep, and you have done it on purpose that you might 
the more easily and the more comfortably sin. Bre- 
thren, T am not your enemy because I have told you the 
truth. That very conscience which you have insulted 
bears me witness that it is the truth which I now minis- 
ter before you. I warn you of your danger. Oh ! I 
would not fear to shake you roughly if I could only 
bring you to a knowledge of yourselves. It is a sad and 
disastrous thought that there are some consciences here 
so fatally asleep that they may never be roused except 
by the peal of the judgment trumpet or by the flashing 
of the penal tires. 

2. Then there are some whose consciences are aroused^ 
and who are going about, it may be, in bitterness of 
soul. You have seemed, perhaps, hard and impene- 
trable, but there has been a terrible war in your soul ; 
your conscience has been at work ; it is at work now. 
Oh ! I have a power over you from this fact — that I 
have got an ally in your own bosom testifying to the 
truth of the things I speak before you. You may fret 
against that power, but you cannot rob me of it. You 




112 THE MISSION OF THE PTJLPIT. 

cannot get the barb out ; all your endeavors to extract 
it only widen and deepen tlie wound. My brother, oh ! 
let me manifest Christ's redeeming truth to thee. 
Christ has died ; all thy wants may be supplied through 
his wondrous death. Is thy heart callous and ungrate- 
ful ? He has exalted the law and made it honorable. 
Hast thou dishonored justice? He has satisfied its 
claims. Hast thou violated law ? He has lifted up the 
majesty of its equity. Is there in thy spirit unrest and 
storm ? Come to him ; thy conscience is like the Gali 
lean lake — it shall hear him, and there shall be a great 
calm. Doth the curse brood over thee, and calamity 
appal thy soul ? Flee to his outstretched arms, and as 
thou sobbest on his bosom hear his whispered comfort : 
" There is, therefore, now no condemnation unto them 
that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit." See the clouds disappear, the 
tempest hath passed by, the storms rage no longer ; lift 
up thy head, serene, peaceful, smiling, happy. Let us 
hear thy experience: "In whom I have redemption 
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin, accord- 
ing to the riches of his grace." 

3. But some of you have got still further, and are 
happy in the sense of the Redeemer's love. You are in 
the fairest possible position for the true soul-growth day 
by day. You rejoice in Christ Jesus now. You have 
victory over the carnal mind now. All antagonistic 
powers are made subject now. Conscience has resumed 
its authority, and is sensitive at the approach of ill, and 



tup: mission of the pulpit. 113 

eager for the completed will of God. I rejoice, to mani- 
fest God's discipling, training, growing, comforting, 
nourishing truth to you. Self is not the master- 
principle within you now; you are not paralyzed by 
craven fear. There is a good land and fair before you. 
Rise to the dignity of your heritage. What a future 
awaits you ! to be day by day more like God, to have 
day by day bright visions of the throne, day by day in- 
creased power over sin, increased progress toward 
heaven, increased fellowship with the Divine; and then 
when the tabernacle falls down there opens another 
scene — angelic welcomes, the King in his beauty, and a 
house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. 

III. " By manifestation of the truth commending 
ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God." In the sight of God. Ah ! that is the thought 
that hallows it. All our endeavors for the enlighten- 
ment of the ignorant are under the felt inspection of 
Almighty God. His eye marks the effort; his voice, 
"I know thy works," is constantly in-spoken to the 
soul. It is necessary that we should feel this in order 
to fit us for our duty. If we do not feel this we shall 
have no courage. Depend upon it, the heroism which 
the pulpit needs, which it never needed in this world's 
history so much as it needs to-day — the heroism which 
the pulpit needs, which the ministry must have, will 
not be wrought in the soul unless this thought be there. 
There is so much to enslave a man — the consciousness 
of his own -airworthiness and weakness, in his best and 



114 THE MIS3I0X OF THE PULPIT. 

holiest moments ; the love of approbation which, from 
a natural instinct, swells often into a sore temptation ; 
the reluctance to give offence lest the ministry should 
be blamed, the anxiety as to what men think of him 
and say of him — oh! how often have these things 
checked the stern reproof or faithful warning, made 
a preacher the slave instead of the monarch of his 
congregation, and, instead of the stern, strong, fearless 
utterance of the prophet, made him stammer forth his 
lispings with the hesitancy of a blushing child. De- 
pend upon it, it is no light matter ; it requires no com- 
mon boldness to stand single-handed before the pride 
of birth, and the pride of rank, and the pride of office, 
and the pride of intellect, and the pride of money, to 
rebuke their transgressions, to ship off their false con- 
fidence, and tear away their refuges of lies. But if a 
man have it burned into his heart that he is speaking 
in the sight of God, he will do it — yes, he will. God- 
fear will banish man-fear. He will feel that for the 
time the pulpit is his empire and the temple is his 
throne, and, like another Baptist, he will thunder out 
his denunciations against rich and poor together, with 
his honest eyes straight flashing into theirs, " Except 
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 

" In the sight of God." Give him that thought, and 
he will be tender as well as brave ; he will look upon 
his congregation as immortal, and will see in each one 
before him (oh, that thought is overwhelming !) an off- 
spring of the Divine, an heir of the Everlasting ; and 



THE MISSTON OF THK PULPIT. 115 

in this aspect of it lie will tremble before the majesty 
of man ; he will be awe-struck as he thinks of trying 
to influence them for eternity. There will be no harsh- 
ness in his tones, there will be no severity in his coun- 
tenance. If the violated lav/ must speak out its thun- 
ders, it will be through brimming eyes and faltering 
tongue. He will remember his own recent deliverance. 
Like Joseph, he will scatter blessings round him with 
a large and liberal hand ; but there will be no osten- 
tation, there will be no vanity ; for he will remember 
that he is but the almoner of another's bounty, and that 
his own soul has only just been brought out of prison. 
He will be like one shipwrecked mariner who has but 
just got upon a rock, and is stretching out a helping 
hand to another who yet struggles in the waters ; but 
he that is on the rock knows that the yawning ocean 
rages and is angry, near. Oh ! let us realize that we 
are in sight of God, and we shall have larger sympa- 
thies for man, we shall have more of the spirit of Him 
who came eating and drinking, who was a friend of 
publicans and sinners. There will be no fierce rebukes, 
no proud exclusivism, no pharisaical arrogance then. 
The sleeper will not be harshly chided ; the remon- 
strance of affection will yearn over him, " My brother, 
my brother !" and the tear will gather in the eye as the 
invitation is given, or the regret is breathed, " Ye will 
not come unto me that ye may have life ;" " Come, all 
ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." 



116 THE MISSION OF THP: PULPIT. 

"In the sight of God." That will help us to per- 
severe. We shall be constant as well as brave and 
tender, if we realize continually that we are in the 
sight of God. Though difficulties multiply, this will 
prevent us from becoming weary and faint in our 
minds ; we shall remember him who endured the con- 
tradiction of sinners against himself; and, through 
perverseness or obstinacy, whether men will bear or 
whether men will forbear, we shall labor on for the 
cause of Christ and for the good of souls. We shall 
not be satisfied with good report, with extensive popu- 
larity, with decorous congregations, with attention set- 
tled, and seriousness upon every countenance. We 
shall want souls. We shall press right away through 
to the great end of restoring the supremacy of con- 
science, and bringing the disordered world back again 
to its allegiance to God. This is our life-work, and we 
are doing it day by day — unfaithfully, imperfectly, but 
we are doing it. Moral truth upon the mind of man 
is something like a flat stone in a churchyard, through 
which there is a thoroughfare, and hundreds of patter- 
ing feet go over it day after day. Familiarity with it 
has weakened the impression, and time has effaced the 
lettering. But God has sent us with a friendly chisel 
to bring it out again into sharpest, clearest, crispest, 
distinctest outline before the spirits of men. This is 
our life-work ; and we are laboring on amid the driving 
sleet and pelting rain ; jostled now and then by the 
rude and heedless passenger ; fitfully looked at by 



THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 117 

those who Hit away to the farm and the merchandise ; 
regarded with a sort of contemptuous admiration by 
those who admire our industry, while they pity our 
enthusiasm. Patient, earnest workers, we must labor 
on, and we intend to do it. God helping, the ministry 
of reconciliation will continue to be proclaimed, within 
reach of every man in this land, Sabbath after Sabbath, 
universally, unto those who will come, without money 
and without price. And everywhere we shall have 
our reward. I, for my part, cannot labor in vain. 
What think you would sustain me under the pressure 
of the multiplied excitement and multiplied sorrow 
and labor, but the thought that I cannot labor in vain ? 
The words I have just spoken have been launched into 
your ears, and have lodged in your conscience, and I 
cannot recall them. Simple, well-known Bible truths 
have gone into your conscience, and I cannot recall 
them. But they shall come up some day. You and 
I may never meet again until we stand at the judg- 
ment-seat of God. They shall come up then — then — 
and, verily, I shall have my reward. I shall have it 
when some fair-haired child steps out to spell out the 
syllables upon the flat stone, and goes away with a 
new purpose formed in his heart. I shall have it when 
some weather-beaten man, bronzed with the hues of 
climates and shades of years, takes the solemn warning, 
numbers his days, and applies his heart unto wisdom. 
I shall have it in the welcome given to my ascending 
spirit by some whom I first taught, it may be un- 



118 THE MISSION OF THE PULPrT. 

worthily, to swell the hosanna of praise, or to join 
with holy sincerity in all the litanies of prayer. I 
Bhall have it in the smile that wraps np all heaven in 
itself, and in those tones of kindness which flood the 
sonl with ineffable music — " Well done, thou good and 
faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
I leave with you and the Spirit — I dare not trust you 
alone — the Word of his grace, praying that He who 
alone can apply it, may give it life and power. 



IV. 

SOLICITUDE FOE THE ARK OF GOD. 

" And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching ; 
for his heart trembled for the ark of God." — 1 Sam. iv. 13. 

What news from the battle-field ? — for the Philistines 
are out against Israel, and the Israelitish armies are 
marshalled, and have gone forth unto the fight. A few 
days ago a reverse befell them, but they have sent for a 
fancied talisman, and they are marching now with the 
ark of God in their midst, deeming that its presence in 
their camp will assure victory to their side. There is 
expectation in the streets of Shiloh, doubt and hope 
alternating in the spirits of its townsmen ; for though 
the ark is a tower of strength, yet their defeat has dis- 
heartened them, and dark rumors, moreover, of the 
Lord's kindled anger, and of sad prophecies alleged to 
have been spoken, are rife among the people ; so that 
many a glance is strained wistfully toward the plains 
of Aphek, whence the couriers may bring tidings of the 
war. There are quivering lips in the city, and cheeks 
blanched with sudden fear ; for the tidings have come, 
and they are tidings of disaster and of shame : the glory 



120 SOLICITUDE FOR THE AEK OF OOD. 

of Israel hath fallen upon its high places ; the shield of 
the mighty hath been vilely cast away ; thirty thousand 
of the people have fallen with a great slaughter ; and 
the sacred symbol of their faith itself has been carried 
off in triumph by the worshippers of Ashtaroth and 
Dagon. Loud is the wail of the widows, and terrible 
the anguish of the remnant that are left, oppressed by 
the national dishonor. But yonder, near the gate, there 
is one feeble old man, with silvered hair and sightless 
eyes, before whom, as each mourner passes, he subdues 
his sorrow into silence, as in the presence of grief that 
is mightier than his own. It is Eli, the high priest of 
God ; he hears the tumult, but is yet unconscious of its 
cause. But now the messenger comes in hastily to 
unfold his burden of lamentation and of weeping. 
" And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of 
the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he 
said, What is there done, my son ?" Oh, terrible are 
the tidings that are now to come upon the heart of that 
old man, like successive claps of thunder. "And the 
messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before 
the Philistines " — here the patriot mourns — " and there 
hath been also a great slaughter among the people " — 
here the spirit of the judge is stricken — " and thy two 
sons also, Hophni and Phineas, are dead" — here the 
father's heart bleeds. Strong must have been the 
struggle of the spirit under the pressure of this cumu- 
lative agony, but it bears nobly up. Ah, but there is a 
heavier woe behind: "And the ark of God is taker. 



SOLICITUDE FOE THE ARK OF GOD. 121 

And it came to pass when lie made mention of the ark 
of God " — not till then, never till then—" that he fell 
from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and 
his neck brake, and he died." The grand old man : he 
may have been feeble in restraint and criminal in 
indulgence, but there is majesty about this his closing 
scene which redeems his errors and shrines him with 
the good and true. The patriot could survive the dis- 
honor of his country ; the judge, though weeping sore, 
could be submissive under the slaughter of the people ; 
the father, his heart rent the while with remorseful 
memories, could have upborne under the double be- 
reavement : but the saint swooned away his life when 
deeper affliction was narrated of the disaster that had 
happened to the ark of God. " And it came to pass 
that when he made mention of the ark of God that he 
fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, 
and his neck brake, and he died." 

Brethren, this is just the character, the type of cha- 
racter, that we covet for the churches of to-day — men of 
broad souls, large-hearted and kindly in their human 
sympathy, bating not a jot in all earthly activities and 
philanthropy, but reserving their highest solicitudes for 
the cause and service of the Lord Jesus Christ. " An 
impossible combination," scoffers are ready to observe^ 
" and unlovely even if it were possible. The narrow 
fanaticism will contract the human affection ; the man 
will be so absorbed in the possibilities of the shall-be as 
to forget the interests of the now; he will live in a 

6 



122 SOLICITUDE FOR THE AKK OF GOD. 

world of the ideal, and the life that now is, and that 
presses upon us so incessantly on every side, will dege- 
nerate into a brief history of dwarfed charities and 
aimless being." lSTay, surely not so, my brother. That 
love must ever be the kindliest, even on its human side, 
which has the furthest and the most open vision. That 
cannot be either a small or a scanty affection which 
takes eternity within its scope and range. The Christ- 
ian, the more he realizes his Christianity, and embodies 
it, becomes of necessity pervaded by an affection, 
bounded only by the limits of humanity. 

"Pure love to God its members find- 
Pure love to every son of man." 

And this love, which the thought of eternity thus makes 
indestructible, is raised by the same thought above the 
imperfections which attach themselves to individual 
character, so that it sees the broad stamp of humanity 
everywhere, and discovers, even in the outcast and 
trembling sinner, an heir of the Everlasting, an offspring 
of the Divine. 

And this, the perfection of character, is the character 
which we covet for you. You will find very many 
instances in Scripture in. which, in words full, full to 
overflowing, of the warmest human affection, regard 
for the spiritual is discovered, not in ostentatious obtru- 
sion, but in developments of incidental beauty, to be 
the reigning passion of the soul. Who can for a 
moment doubt the strong human affection of the be- 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 123 

loved disciple, who, loving at first, drank in a deeper 
lovingness as he lay upon the Master's bosom, and to 
whom, as the fittest for such a mission, was committed 
the charge of that meek sufferer with a sword in her 
heart — the sad and saintly mother of our Lord ? Listen 
to his salutation to Gains the well-beloved : " I wish 
above all things " — this is my chiefest and most fervent 
desire — "I wish above all things that thou may est 
prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 
This is the principal thing after all. Remember David 
and all his afflictions. See the persecuted monarch 
fleeing from his infuriated and bitter enemies, hunted 
like a hart upon the mountains, lodged, with small 
estate and diminished train, in some fortress of Engedi or 
in some cave of Adullam ! Of what dreams he in his 
solitude % What are the memories that charge his 
waking hours ? Does he sigh for the palace and the 
purple, for the sceptre and the crown ? No — Hark ! 
His royal harp, long silent, trembles again into melody ! 
" How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! 
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of 
the Lord : my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living 
God." See him again when he is crossing the brook 
Kedron, when the hearts of his people have been stolen 
from him by his vile and flattering son ; when he has lost 
his crQwn and is in danger of losing his life ; what is his 
chiefest anxiety in that time of adversity, and in that 
crisis of peril ? " And the king said unto Zadok, carry 
back the ark of God into the city. If I shall find favor 



124 SOLICITUDE FOK THE ARK OF GOO. 

in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again, and 
show me both it and his habitation." As if he had 
said, " The ark of God — all that is tender and all that is 
sacred are in my history associated with the ark of God 
— carry back the ark of God into the city. I am 
hunted like a hart upon my own mountains ; I have 
no longer a sceptre of authority ; I am going upon a 
precarious expedition ; I know not what may become 
of me. Carry back the ark. Don't let it share our 
fortune ; don't let it be exposed to insult and pillage, 
and the chances of war. Carry back the ark carefully. 
Whatever becomes of me, carry back the ark of God 
into the city ; though I wander in exile, lie down in 
sorrow, and am at last buried in the stranger's grave." 
But what need of multiplying examples ? It was his 
religious home, the metropolis of faith, the place which 
God's presence had hallowed, which was referred to 
when the happy Israelite, rejoicing in recovered free- 
dom, and remembering long years of bondage, struck 
his harp and sang, " By the rivers of Babylon there we 
sat down ; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." 
And this, I repeat it, brethren, the perfection of charac- 
ter, is the character we covet for you. As Christians 
you are bound to cultivate it. It is the highest affec- 
tion in heaven : " The Lord loveth the gates of Zion 
more than all the dwellings of Jacob." It is the high- 
est affection of the incarnate Son : " The zeal of thine 
house hath eaten me up." It is the highest affection of 
the Apostle, the highest style of man : " Neither count 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 125 

I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the 
grace of God." 

Oh, that God would raise up amongst us Elis in our 
spiritual Israel, who, with reverent and earnest solici- 
tude, would have their hearts tremble for the ark of 
God. His heart trembled for the ark of God, and 
wherefore ? Because the ark of God was in peril. In 
peril from its enemies — in greater peril from its friends. 
And, brethren, the cause and kingdom of Christ, pure 
religion and undefiled before God and the Father, the 
faith for which we are valiantly and constantly to con- 
tend, is in this hazard to-day. It also is in peril : in 
peril from its enemies ; in greater, deeper, deadlier peril 
from its friends. 

These are the points which I will endeavor, briefly, 
God helping me, to illustrate on the present occasion. 

I. In the first place, the ark of God is in peril from 
its enemies. There never was a period, perhaps, when 
the ark of God was carried out into a hotter battle, 
or was surrounded by fiercer elements of antagonism. 
There is, for instance, idolatry, holding six hundred mil- 
lions of our race in thrall. Idolatry, which has suc- 
ceeded in banishing from their perceptions all thought 
of the true God — which holds all that vast world of 
mind under the tyranny of the vilest passions, and 
under the dark and sad eclipse both of intellectual and 
spiritual knowledge. 



126 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 

There is, again, imposture, reigning in Mohammedan 
realms over one hundred and forty millions of souls ; 
imposture, accommodated with the most exquisite inge- 
nuity to the prejudices of the population among which 
it was to spread, complimenting Moses to cajole the 
Jew, speaking respectfully of Jesus to seduce the nomi- 
nal Christian, offering a voluptuous heaven to the 
licentious Pagan, and gathering in the indifferent by 
the wholesale conversion of the sword — imposture thus 
founded and perpetuated over some of the fairest pro- 
vinces of the globe in foul and ferocious despotism until 
now. 

There is, again, superstition, the corruption of Christi- 
anity by Greek and papal admixtures, blinding the 
world with the utter falsehood of half truths, dazzling 
the senses and emasculating the understanding, traffick- 
ing in sin as in merchandise, and selling escape from 
its penalties cheap. Imposture, under whose strange 
system atheist and libertine, infidel and Jew, may 
join hands together and with equal rights wear the 
sacred garments, and, in robes upon which the cross is 
broidered, may gather together to make war against the 
Lamb. 

There is, again, skepticism, that cold and soulless 
thing, that mystery of iniquity, which doth already 
work, chilling the ardor of the church and hardening 
the unbelief of the world--skepticism, bribing intellect 
to sustain it with sophistry, and genius to foster its 
errors, and poetry to embalm them in song — skepticism, 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 127 

that travels through the universe in search of truth 
and beauty, that it may enfeeble the one by its misgiv- 
ings, and blight the comeliness of the other by its wintry 
breath. 

All these, enemies of Christianity from the beginning, 
and retaining their ancient hate against it, now are the 
Philistines of its spiritual field. They are not content, 
as in former times, with holding their own ; they have 
a resolute purpose of aggression. They have habit, and 
numbers, and prejudice on their side ; they have war- 
riors and a priesthood, zealous and valiant in their 
service. They have no chivalry about them to restrain 
them from any style of warfare. They smart under 
multiplied defeats, and they know that in the heart of 
every man in the world there are interests and sympa- 
thies in their favor. There is reason, then, is there not, 
for that cry, " Men of Israel, help !" there is reason, 
strong and solemn reason, why the Elis of our Israel 
should sit by the wayside, watching, for their hearts 
tremble for the ark of God. It is not necessary to 
enlarge upon this point. I do not want to preach 
specially to-night in reference to these extraneous mat- 
ters — matters, I mean, extraneous to the Church of 
Christ, which hinder the progress of the work of God in 
the world. I want to come nearer home in discussing 
our second point : 

II. Just as it was in the days of Israel, so it is now — 

THE ARK OF GoD IS IN STRONGER, DEEPER, DEADLIER PERIL 

from its friends. Vainly might the Philistines have 



128 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 

fought, vainly might the foe have striven, if there had 
not been in the heart of the camp the springs of deep 
and destructive evils, if the chosen children of Israel 
had not been traitors and unworthy of themselves. 
And there are, if you will only examine into the subject, 
strange analogies subsisting between the causes which 
prevented the victory of Israel of old, and the causes 
which operate with such fearful disaster against the pro- 
gress of the truth of God to-day. 

1. In the first place, there was in the camp of Israel 
of old the presence of superstition, a blind reliance upon 
external forms. The Israelites, though their lives were 
loose and their devotions therefore iniquity, felt safe in 
the prospect of the battle, because they had the presence 
of the ark. At other times they cared nothing about it, 
were indifferent altogether as to its welfare ; but in the 
hour of danger, they rallied round it as an amulet of 
strength, and in place of contrition before God, and in 
place of humblings on account of sin, they vaunted that 
the Lord was in the midst of them, and conveyed what 
they deemed to be the symbol of his presence with 
arrogant and obtrusive gladness to the camp. And it 
is to be feared, brethren, that there is much of this vain 
and formal confidence clogging our piety now. Are 
there not hanging upon our skirts, ostensibly one with 
us in fellowship and spirit, many of whom we stand in 
doubt before God, and over" whose defective consistency 
we mourn? Kay, are we not all conscious, each for 
himself — let the spirit of searching come in — are we not 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 129 

all conscious of compromise, if not, indeed, of betrayal ? 
Our church, our organization, our influence, the decorum 
of our services, the activity of our agencies, an attractive 
ministry, a respectable gathering, a well-furnished sanc- 
tuary, a well-replenished treasury — have not these 
stolen our hearts away from the Divine, the spiritual, 
the heavenly? Our spirit — bounds it after the Divine 
Spirit as it once did ? Our ear — listens it as intently 
for his whispers ? Our eye — has it as keen an insight 
for his coming ? Or is the very symbol of his dwelling, 
which, in the olden time, transformed the wilderness 
from the sepulchre into the home, become an occasion 
of sin, if not an object of idolatry ? Oh, for some brave 
old Hezekiah to come amongst us and write Nehushtan 
upon the mutilated brass, and break it into pieces before 
God ! Do not mistake us ; we are no iconoclasts, to 
dissolve all organizations, and mutilate the whole and 
perfect symmetry of truth, and with distempered zeal 
to tear away the inscriptions on her holy and beautiful 
house. We rejoice in precious ordinances, and crowded 
sanctuaries, and in those grand institutions of benevo- 
lence which redeem our age from lethargy. But when 
the trust of the individual or of the church is placed in 
these things, God's Holy Spirit is dishonored, and the 
life of our religion becomes of dwarfed growth and 
sickly habit, from the very care with which we screen it 
from the breath of heaven. Brethren, are there not in 
the Divine "Word many intimations of the tendency which 
we now deplore, to let the very highest and holiest 

6* 



130 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 

customs degenerate into the indifference of formalism ? 
That the brazen serpent lifted np in the wilderness 
received in after ages idolatrous homage, I have already 
reminded you. And such was the danger of idolatry to 
the children of Israel, that God would not trust any one 
of them to be present at the funeral of their great law- 
giver. No human eye must witness his obsequies, but, 
in solitary possession of his God-prepared sepulchre, the 
lordly lion stalked, and the bald old eagle flew. The 
combined power of healing and of speech constrained 
the worship of the men of Lystra for the Apostles Bar- 
nabas and Paul. Maltese superstition, which had 
branded him as a murderer whom the viper stung, in 
sudden reaction deified him when he declined to die. 
And in the time of the Saviour, the temple had become 
a house of merchandise ; anise and cummin were of 
more account than righteousness and truth, and enlarged 
phylacteries and public prayers, and a countenance pre- 
ternaturally sad, were the low and degenerate substi- 
tutes for a renewed heart and a holy life. And, bre- 
thren, it becomes us solemnly to be on our guard in this 
matter, for the same tendency exists still. The formal 
and the careless will creep into our worship, and, if we 
are not watchful, will eat out the heart of our religion. 
If, as individuals, our trust is in our attendance on 
religious ordinances, or our participation of sacramental 
emblems and our fellowship in church communion, or 
the comeliness of our external moralities, and if, in the 
strength of these, unfurnished with the higher gifts of 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE AEK OF GOD. 131 

the Divine Spirit, we go out to dare the dangers and 
fight the battles of our daily life ; and if, as a church, as 
a confederacy of Christian people, we talk about our 
numbers, and our agency, and our influence, what are 
we doing but perpetrating — perpetrating, too, with still 
greater aggravation and enormity — the error and the 
sin of the people of Israel of old ? "We carry the ark 
into the battle, but we leave the God of the ark behind 
us ; and there is strong and solemn need that the Elis 
of our Israel" should sit by the wayside, watching, for 
their hearts tremble for the ark of God. 

2. I observe, secondly, that there was inconsistency 
in the camp of Israel. The times were times of apostasy 
and of idolatry ; the priests, who should have been the 
leaders of the people, committed abominable iniquity ; 
there were sensuality and oppression in the service of 
the holy shrine, so that men abhorred the offering of 
the Lord, and, by consequence, the whole land became 
infected with the contagion of this evil example. There 
was still an affectation of reverence for the sanctuary, 
and of attachment to the ark; but the Lord of the 
sanctuary and the God of the ark were not the true 
objects of worship and of love. And is it not so largely 
now? Are there not amongst those who habitually 
gather themselves for worship, numbers, not, perhaps, 
consciously insincere, but strangely defective? and 
numbers more — spots in our feasts of charity — who come 
among us like so many whited sepulchres, all symmetry 
without, but all rottenness within: Achans, whose 



132 SOLICITUDE FOE THE ARK OF GOD. 

rapacious covetousness can hardly hold itself from the 
prey : Reubens, whose unstable souls are luring them- 
selves to their own destruction : Judases, with fawning 
lip, and grasping hand, but hiding in the coward heart 
the guilty purpose of betrayal? Are there not such 
amongst us ? Yes, there are those who intrude them- 
selves into our assemblies, eluding all human scrutiny, 
wearing the garb of sanctity, and remaining in their 
imposture, perhaps, until some overwhelming pressure 
crushes them, and brings scandal upon the cause that 
they have dishonored. And in public life are we not 
accustomed to hear a noisy zeal for the holy name of 
God on the part of men who rarely use it except in 
imprecation and in blasphemy — ostentatious helpings- 
on of the ark by those in whose esteem it figures only 
as an imposing thing for public procession, or as a relic 
of sanctity to be unveiled to the curious in some hour 
of rejoicing and of display ? Brethren, this inconsistency 
imperils alike our own salvation and the progress of the 
cause of God. The Church must be consistent, every 
individual in the Church must be sincere and thorough 
in his piety, before the work is done. It may be, or it 
may not be, that there is the hypocrite here to-night — 
the systematic and habitual impostor — who has assumed 
the garb of godliness that he may the better sin ; if 
there be, in God's name let him forsake his hope, for it 
will perish, and let him at once, before the hail sweeps 
his refuges of lies away, seek mercy of that Saviour 
whom he has insulted and betrayed. And what is our 



SOLICITUDE FOR THE AltK OF GOD. 133 

condition? Grey hairs have come upon us, signs of 
feebleness, tokens of lassitude and age, and we have not 
known it. Oh ! a more sincere and decisive godliness 
is wanted from us all, if we would either pass untar- 
nished through the terrible temptations of the world, or 
be found worthy to bear the vessels of the Lord. 
Brethren, we must resolve that whatever of insincerity 
may have attached to our profession shall at once be 
forsaken, and that we will from this time forward, God 
helping us, renew our baptismal vows, and be valiant 
for the truth upon the earth. If in our pursuit of plea- 
sure there has been the indulgence of frivolity, and per- 
haps of licentiousness — if in our high-reaching ambition 
for renown there have been oppression and time-serv- 
ing, and the concealment of principle, and practices that 
are corrupt and unworthy — if in our labor for compe- 
tence there has been compliance with unhallowed cus- 
tom, or complicity with wrong — if we have followed 
the maxims of trade, rather than the maxims of truth — 
if there has been over-reaching and cupidity in our 
commercial life, we have sinned, and our profession of 
religion only makes our sin more truly scandalous, and 
more completely sin. And it behooves us all now, from 
this very hour, to put away the sin from us with loath- 
ing, and fall humbled and penitent before God. We 
must have holiness — inner and vital heart-holiness — if 
we would cleave unto the Lord with full purpose of 
heart. 

Brethren, when I see out in the broad world the 



134: SOLICITUDE FOE THE ARK OF GOD. 

palpable inconsistencies of professors of religion — a man 
devout in the sanctuary and detestable at home, saintly 
on the Sabbath and sordid all the week, ostentatious in 
the enterprises of benevolence, but grinding his own 
workmen and tyrannical to the poor — when I see a 
man, whose citizenship is ostensibly in heaven, distance 
the keenest worldling around him in the race of fashion, 
or in the strife for gold — when I see a man, whose reli- 
gion teaches the divinest charity, censorious in his 
spirit, and narrow in his soul — when I see a man, to 
whom God has given a fortune in stewardship, grudging 
to dispense to him that is in want ; when I see a man, 
whose Divine Saviour rebuked his own disciples for in- 
tolerance, professing to follow his footsteps, and yet 
harshly excluding thousands from his fold ; or when in 
the world of opinion I see religion represented as vindi- 
cating the most monstrous atrocities, as preaching 
eternal reprobation, as advocating an accursed system 
of slavery, as upholding an aggressive war — what have I 
to think but, as it was in the days of ancient Israel, the 
ark of God is carried out by the uncircumcised to battle, 
and there is need — strong, solemn, and passionate need 
— that the Elis of our Israel should sit upon the way- 
side, watching, for their hearts tremble for the ark of 
God. 

3. And then there was, in the third place — and it is 
the last particular that I shall mention — there was in 
the camp of ancient Israel indifference. I do not mean 
to say that there was not a sort of patriotism — a natural 






SOLICITUDE FOR THE AEK OF GOD. 135 

and common wish for victory — a desire to free them- 
selves from the Philistine thrall. But patriotism, to be 
real and to be hallowed, must have all-heartedness ; 
and this was lacking. They had no confidence in their 
leaders; there was among them the element of dis- 
union. The laxity of their lives had of necessity en- 
feebled somewhat their moral principles, so that the 
high and chivalrous inspirations of the true lover of his 
country were emotions that were above them and 
beyond them. Hence, they went out into the battle- 
field, but they went with paralyzed arms ; conscience 
made cowards of them, and, recreant and panic-stricken, 
they fled at the first attack of the foe. And, brethren, 
can there be any question that a lack of whole-hearted 
earnestness is one of the chief sources of peril to the ark 
of God to-day ? Oh, if Laodicea is to be the type of the 
Church, it is no wonder that the world sneers and 
perishes ! If religion, clad in silken sheen, has become 
a patronized and fashionable thing — a something that 
men cleave to as they cleave to the other items of a res- 
pectable life — something that they wear as a sort of 
armorial bearing for which they pay small duty either 
to God or man — it is no wonder that the world should 
be heedless of the message, and should subside into the 
drowsy monotony in which the messengers dream away 
their lives. Brethren, the poisonous trees do little harm 
in the vineyard ; they are uprooted as soon as they are 
seen. It is the barren trees, that cumber the ground 
and mock the husbandman, that are the curses of the 



136 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 

vineyard of the Lord. Cases of flagrant apostasy but 
little hinder the progress of the work; their incon- 
sistency is so palpable and manifest. They are the true 
hinderers, under the shadow of whose luxury, and idle- 
ness, and frivolity, the Church sits at ease in Zion, 
while they are eating out its inner life as the vampire 
sucks out the life-blood of the victim that it is all the 
while fanning with its wings. Oh, brethren, we need 
all of us a baptism for a deeper and diviner earnestness, 
that we may bear our testimony for God. We are a 
witnessing Church ; this is our character and our mis- 
sion. But, alas ! our witness has sometimes been feeble 
and has sometimes been false. We have been altogether 
too secular and too selfish. "We have not been prophets 
— not we ; but stammering, hesitating, blushing child- 
ren, ashamed of the message that our Father has bidden 
us deliver. We have sought morality rather than holi- 
ness, serenity rather than sacrifice, smooth things to 
conciliate the world rather than strong things to conquer 
the world. We have been content to grasp all the 
world's wealth and honor that we could, and then, in 
:he great wreck, some on boards and some on broken 
pieces of the ship, to get ourselves safe to land, rather 
than, freighted with heavenly treasure, to cast anchor 
in the fair haven with colors flying, and amid the glad 
welcome of the multitudes on shore. Oh, there is room, 
brethren, indeed there is, for the taunt of the infidel : 
" Ye Christians are as infidel as I am ; ye do not believe 
in your own system; if you did, like a fire in your 






SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 137 

bones, it would burn you into action, if by any means 
you might save some.' 1 Oh ! everything' around us is 
rebuking this lethargic and this professional' piety. 
Everything is in earnest — suns in their constant shining, 
and, rivers in their ceaseless flow ; the breeze that stops 
not day nor night to bear health upon its wings, the 
sirring tripping up the winter, the seed-time hastening 
on the harvest — all are activity, faltering not, any one 
of them, in the sure and steady purpose of their being. 
Error is in earnest ; Pagans are self-devoted ; Mohamme- 
danism has her resolute and valiant sons ; Popery com- 
passes sea and land to make one proselyte ; infidels walk 
warily and constantly, scattering the seeds of unbelief. 
Society is in earnest; the sons of enterprise do not 
slumber ; the warriors — how they hail the clarion call, 
and rush eagerly into the battle; the students — how 
they consume the oil of the lamp and the oil of life to- 
gether ; Mammon's votaries — are they the laggards in the 
streets ? Oh, everything around us seems to be lashed 
into intensest energy, while we — ingrates that we are, 
God forgive us ! — with the noblest work in the universe 
to do, and the most royal facilities to do it with ; with 
the obligations of duty, and gratitude, and brotherhood, 
and fellowship ; with the vows of discipleship upon us ; 
with death at our doors and in our homes ; and with the 
sad, wailing sound, as if it came from places where men 
were and are not : " ~No man hath cared for my soul " 
— we are heedless and exclusive, selfish and self- 
aggrandizing, and, worst of all, as self-satisfied with our 



138 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 

grudged obedience, and our scanty effort, and our 
heartless prayer, as if no sinners were in peril and as 
if no Christ had died. And is it really so ? Has that 
mightiest motive lost its power? Is Mammon really 
more potent than Messiah ? Has the crucifix a holier 
inspiration than the cross? Is it true that war can 
move men's passions, and science stimulate their souls, 
and trade intensify their energies, and ambition flame 
their blood ? and is Christianity nothing but a worn-out 
spell — a dim memorial of ancient power — an ex- 
tinguished volcano, with no fire slumbering in its 
mighty heart ? Is it true ? Thy cross, O Jesus, has it 
lost its magnetism? does it no longer draw all men 
unto thee ? Thy love, O Saviour, boundless, unfathom- 
able, all-embracing, doth it constrain no longer the souls 
for whom thy blood was shed ? It is yours to answer 
these questions ; do it as in the sight of God. But, oh ! 
when we see the terrible indifference around us — when 
we see the awful contrast between the intensity of our 
beliefs and the smallness of our doings for Christ — what 
wonder is it that the Elis of our Israel, who, with all 
their faults, feel their heart-strings quiver in solicitude 
for the interests of Zion, should sit by the wayside, 
watching, because their hearts tremble for the ark of 
God? 

May God the Holy Ghost come down, and write these 
truths upon the hearts of all, for his name's sake ! 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

" Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, 
he also himself likewise took part of the same." — Heb. ii. 14. 

Some eighteen hundred years ago, in the land of 
Judah, and in the city of Jerusalem, a strange restless- 
ness had come upon the public mind. If a stranger 
just about that time had visited the Holy City, and 
had made himself acquainted with the inner life of its 
inhabitants, he would have found them all engrossed 
with one absorbing theme. It had superseded, as 
matter of interest, commerce, and conquest, and the 
intrigues of faction, and the subjects of ordinary poli- 
tics. It had become the unconfessed hope of matrons 
and the deep study of earnest men. So prevalently 
had it spread, that it became identified with every 
thinking of the Hebrew mind, and with every beating 
of the Hebrew heart. This topic was the advent of a 
Deliverer who had been promised of God unto their 
fathers. Their holy books contained circumstantial 
directions, both as to the signs of his coming, and as 
to the period about which he might be expected to 

139 



140 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

appear, and these various prophecies converged to 
their fulfillment. There were rumors, moreover, of 
certain meteoric appearances, which in Eastern coun- 
tries were deemed the luminous heralds of the birth 
of a great king ; and the heart of many a patriot Jew 
would throb more quickly, as in his vain dream of 
material empire he saw the Messiah, already, in vision, 
triumphing over his enemies, and his followers flushed 
with the spoil. In the midst of this national expect- 
ancy, events of strong significance were occurring in 
a quarter from which the eyes of the world would have 
turned heedlessly or in scorn. The national census was 
decreed to be taken throughout the Jewish provinces 
of the Roman empire in the time of Augustus Csesar. 
In obedience to the imperial enactment, each man, with 
his household, went up for enrollment to his own — that 
is, his ancestral city. The unwonted influx of strangers 
had crowded the little inn in the little city of Bethle- 
hem, one of the least among the thousands of Judah ; 
so that the out-buildings were laid under tribute to 
furnish shelter to later comers. In the stable of that 
mean hostelry a young child was born. There was 
nothing about him to distinguish him from the ordinary 
offspring of Jewish mothers, and yet, at the moment 
of his birth, a new song from angel harps and voices 
rang through the plains of Bethlehem and ravished the 
watchful shepherds with celestial harmonies. Small 
space had passed ere wondering peasants beheld a star 
of unusual brightness hovering over that obscure dwell- 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 141 

ing ; and by and by the inn was thrown into confusion 
by the arrival of a company of foreigners from afar 
off — swarthy and richly apparelled, who made their 
way to the stable with costly gifts and spices, which 
they presented to the new-born babe, and bowed the 
knee before him in homage, as to a royal child. Rapidly 
new the glad tidings of great joy — passed from lip to 
lip, until the whole city was full of them — scorned by 
haughty Pharisees with scoffs and doubting — hailed 
with devout gladness by the faithful few who waited 
for the consolation of Israel — agitating all classes of 
the people — startling the vassal monarch on his throne 
— " Unto yon is born this day in the city of David a 
Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." 

Brethren, it is ours in this day to rejoice in the bless- 
ing which on that day descended on mankind. Blind- 
ness, indeed, hath happened nnto Israel, so that they 
see not the glorious vision. And there are many among 
Ourselves to turn away their eyes from the sight. But 
the advent of the Saviour has been the chiefest joy of 
the multitudes who once struggled like ourselves on 
earth, and who now triumph through his grace in 
heaven ; and multitudes more, rejoicing in his true 
humanity, and happy in their brotherhood with Im- 
manuel, cease not to thank God for the unspeakable 
gift, that, "forasmuch as the children are partakers of 
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of 
the same." 

The great fact, of course, which the Apostle wishes 



142 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

to impress upon us, is our Saviour's assumption of hu- 
manity. And there are certain salient characteristics 
of that incarnation, upon which, in order that we may 
have it presented in all its aspects of blessing before 
our minds, we may not unprofitably dwell. 

I. We observe, in the first place, then, that the 
Saviour's assumption of humanity was an act of in- 
finite condescension. It is obviously impossible that 
the language in which the Apostle here refers to Christ 
could be used legitimately of any being possessed essen- 
tially of the nature of flesh and blood. The language 
before us, applied to any mere man, even the holiest, 
even the most heroic, would be impertinent and with- 
out meaning. There is obviously implied the fact of 
his preexistence, and of his preexistence in a nature 
other and higher than that which he assumed. In a 
subsequent verse the implication is further made, that 
this preexistence was in a nature other and higher than 
the angelic. For in his descent from the highest to 
recover and save, he took not hold on angels — they 
perished without redemption and without hope; but 
he took hold on the seed of Abraham. In the former 
chapter the Apostle rather largely illustrates his supe- 
riority to the angel : " When he bringeth in the first- 
begotten into the world, he saith, Let all the angels of 
God worship him." Just as when a crown prince goes 
a travel into some foreign realm, all the choicest of the 
nobility are selected to wait upon his bidding and fol- 
low in his train, so when He bringeth his first-begotten 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 143 

into the world — a foreign realm to him — lie says, " Let 
all the angels of God " — all the principalities and powers 
in heavenly places — worship, bow down to, wait upon, 
minister to him. Again, " of the angels he saith, Who 
maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of 
fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, 
is forever and ever ; a sceptre of righteousness is the 
sceptre of thy kingdom." Erorn the scope and tenor 
of these passages — indeed, from the scope and tenor of 
the Apostle's entire argument, we are swift to conclude, 
and we are bold to affirm, the proper and unoriginated 
Godhead of the Saviour ; that it was God made man 
for man to die. Yes, brethren, that stoop of illimitable 
graciousness was from the highest to the lowest. And 
in mysterious union with the child-heart of that uncon- 
scious babe the veiled Divinity slumbered. That weary 
and hungry traveller along the journey of life — it was 
Jehovah's fellow ! That meek sufferer whose head is 
bowed to drink the cup of bitterness to the dregs — it 
was the true God, and eternal life ! Strange marriage 
between the finite and the infinite; incomprehensible 
union between the divine and human ! 

There are scoffers in the world, I know, who dismiss 
the mystery of the incarnation, and deride it as the fig- 
ment of fancy, or as the vision of fanaticism. They are 
of two kinds mostly : some who try everything by the 
standard of their own ideas, and who exalt their own 
reason — at best of no great tallness, and which preju- 
dice has dwarfed into yet pigmier stature — into abso- 



144 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

lute dictatorship over the realm of mind ; and others 
more degraded, who seek a license for their desperate 
wickedness amidst the skepticisms of a still more des- 
perate infidelity, who dismiss the narrative of the in- 
carnation because it is a mystery, something that is not 
patent to the senses, which they aver to be the only 
means of knowledge. All the while they live in a 
mysterions world where there are thousands of secrets 
which their hearts cannot unravel. In the ordinary 
resources of life, in the daily benefits which Providence 
pours forth ungrudgingly, they take their churlish share 
of blessings whose wherefore they understand not. They 
are themselves a mystery, perhaps, greater than aught. 
They cannot, any one of them, understand that subtile 
organism which they call man, nor how that strange 
essence or principle, which they call life, floods them 
every moment with rapture ; and yet, with marvellous 
inconsistency, credulous on matters where no mystery 
might be expected to abide, they are skeptical in mat- 
ters where mystery exists of necessity, and where the 
absence of it would be a suspicious sign : " For canst 
thou by searching find out God ; canst thou find out 
the Almighty unto perfection ?" 

Brethren, the incarnation of Christ is a mystery — an 
inexplicable and solemn mystery. But were there no 
mystery, on the other hand, think you, in the event of 
Christ being a mere man? How stands the case? 
There is an individual obscurely born ; reared in vil- 
lage humbleness ; looked on by his kindred according 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 14:5 

to the flesh with coldness, if not with dislike ; with no 
aristocratic connections, with no noble patronage ; tell- 
ing to all to whom he ministered, with a strange can- 
dor, that he required absolute service ; that he had no 
preferments in his gift ; that he had no bribes to win 
the allegiance of the sordid ; that it was more than 
likely, if they followed him, that they would have to 
forsake all else, to part at once with all that was lucra- 
tive and all that was endearing ; to be secluded from 
ecclesiastical privilege ; to be traduced by slander ; to 
be hunted by persecution ; nay, to hold life cheap, for 
whosoever killed them, in the blind zeal of his partisan- 
ship, thought he had done God service. Now, look at 
that individual. In spite of all these disadvantages, by 
the mere force of his teaching and of his life, he gathers 
a multitude of followers ; charms the fisher from the 
lake ; charms the soldier from the standard ; charms — 
strangest of all — the publican from the loved seat of 
custom ; and not only these, who might, perhaps, be 
imagined to risk little hj the venture, but charms the 
physician from his practice, the scholarly student from 
the feet of his master, the ruler from his pride and 
luxury, the honorable counsellor from the deliberations 
of the Sanhedrim. The chief authorities combine 
against him ; but his doctrine spreads. His name is 
attainted as a traitor ; but he is held dearer than ever. 
His death gratifies his bloodthirsty and relentless foes ; 
but his disciples rally, and his cause lives on. His 
tomb is jealously guarded and hermetically sealed, but 

7 



146 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

it is somehow found empty notwithstanding. He shows 
himself alive by many infallible proofs. He soars, after 
forty days, from the crest of a mountain, and he has 
established an empire in the minds of thousands upon 
thousands, which promises to be extensive as the world, 
and to be permanent as time. And you ask us to be- 
lieve that all this could be accomplished by the unaided 
resources of a mere man like ourselves ! "Were not 
that a mystery than all other mysteries greater and sur- 
passing far ? Then, look at that individual in the days 
of his flesh. He exerts, on the testimony of numerous 
and unexceptionable witnesses, miraculous power. He 
has power over the elements, for the winds are still at 
his bidding, and the lawless sea obeys him. He has 
power over inorganic matter and over vegetable life, 
for lie blasts the fig-tree by a syllable, and five loaves 
and two fishes swell up, as he speaks, into a royal re- 
past for full five thousand men. He has power over 
the ferocious passions, for he strikes down the advancing 
soldiery, and at his glance the foul demoniac is still. 
He has power over sickness, for the numbed limbs of 
the paralytic quicken, as he speaks, into strengthened 
manhood, and the leprosy scales off from its victim, 
and leaves him comely as a child. He has power over 
death, for at his word the maiden rises from her shroud ; 
and the young man stops at the gate of the city to greet 
his mercy on his way to burial ; and weeping sisters 
clasp their ransomed brother, a four days' dweller in 
the tomb. And you ask us to believe that all this can 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 147 

have been accomplished by the unaided resources of a 
mere man like ourselves ! Were not that a mystery 
than all other mysteries greater and surpassing far? 
M Ah," but say some, " he was a good man, we acknow- 
ledge ; a great teacher, a model man, a representative 
man, the highest man, God specially honored him. He 
may almost be said, indeed, to have had an inferior and 
derived Divinity. It is no wonder, therefore, that he 
should thus perform miracles, and that he should thus 
have founded a dominion." Nay, pardon me, but this 
only deepens the mystery, for this model man, whose 
frown was dismissal from his presence, of whose inimit- 
able morals Rousseau, the infidel, said, that if the life 
and death of Socrates were those of an angel, the life 
and death of Jesus were those of a God — this model 
man claimed all his life to be Divine, made the impres- 
sion of his pretensions upon the minds of the Jews so 
strong that they stoned him for blasphemy, received 
Divine honors without once rebuking the offerers, 
" thought it not robbery to be equal with God," and 
distinctly p7*edicted that he should come again in the 
clouds of heaven. Oh, Jesus of Nazareth cannot pos- 
sibly be simply a good and benevolent man. There is 
no escape from this alternative — no middle position in 
which he can abide — he is either an impostor or God. 
ISTow, unbeliever, you who dismiss the mystery of the 
incarnation, and treat it with solemn scorn or with de- 
risive laughter, solve this mystery of your own. You 
pass through life in your pride and in your skepticism, 



148 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

scouting this mystery of Godhead, and yet shut up to 
the far greater mystery — -either a good man who has 
spoken falsehood, or an impostor who has cheated the 
world. But we, with reverent trust, and from the 
lowest depth from which gratitude can spring, can say, 
" Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in 
the flesh." 

II. I observe, secondly, the Saviour's assumption of 

HUMANITY WAS NOT ONLY CONDESCENDING, BUT VOLUN- 
TARY. This, indeed, follows inevitably from the fore- 
gone conclusion of his Divinity. Being Divine, he 
could be under no restraint of overwhelming necessity. 
To accommodate the theological language to human 
infirmity, we are apt to speak of God sometimes as if 
influenced by external things. But really it is not so ; 
every Divine act is spontaneous and self-originating. 
Jesus Christ, therefore, could be under the bond of no 
possible obligation. Law was himself in spoken precept. 
Justice w T as himself engraven on the universe. Mercy 
was himself, the radiation of his own loving-kindness 
upon his people. Every decision of wisdom, every 
administration of physical government, every act of 
omnipotence, was his own ; not in independent action, 
but in the harmonious union of the Divine nature. It 
is manifest, so far as his Divine nature was concerned, 
that his assumption of humanity must have been dis- 
interested and voluntary ; the strong upwelling of his 
tenderness for the hapless creatures he had made. 
There is something in the spontaneity of his offering 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. . 149 

which redeems it from the suspicion of injustice, and 
which vindicates the Father from the accusations of 
those who charge him with vindictiveness and cruelty. 
It would seem, indeed, as if the Saviour had foreseen, 
in the days of his flesh, that there would rise auda- 
cious rebels, who would thus cast a slur upon his 
Father's kindness, for he defends him by antici- 
pation : " Therefore doth my; Father love me, because 
I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No 
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. 1 
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it 
again." 

But as to the human nature which vicariously suf- 
fered, you remember that at the time there was the 
proposition of incarnation, there was also the proposi- 
tion of equivalent recompense. The promise of the joy 
was coeval with the prospect of suffering. Hence the 
Apostle: "Who for the joy that was set before him 
endured the cross, despising the shame." A world ran- 
somed from the destroyer, a mediatorial kingdom erected 
upon the ruins of earth's spoiled thrones, a name that 
is above every name, honored in heaven by prostrate 
obedience and undying song, honored on earth by every 
confessing lip and every bending knee — this was the 
joy set before him; and for the sake of all this he 
endured patiently the cross, despised, looked down with 
holy contempt upon, mysterious and inconceivable 
shame. Besides, there can be no availableness in 
exacted suffering. There is sojnetbing in the yoluntari- 



150 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

ness of the incarnation which at once exalts our reve- 
rence and augments our affection for our Surety and 
Friend. We judge of the excellency of virtue by the 
willinghood with which it is practised. ¥e cannot 
enter into a proper comparison, because we are all under 
the bond of one common obligation ; but we all know 
that the virtue shines the most brightly which is prac- 
tised amidst hazard and suffering, rather than that 
which is accorded where duty is inviting, and where 
obedience is profitable. Yiewed in this light, what a 
wealth of disinterested generosity there is in the incar- 
nation of Christ. The voice was heard from the midst 
of the throne : " Here I am ; send me. Lo I come. In 
the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy 
will, O my God." In another passage : " I delight to 
do thy will." Now, just think of what the will of God 
in this instance comprehended. The veiling the essen- 
tial glory, the tabernacling in human flesh, the home- 
less wandering, the pangs of desertion and treachery, 
the abhorred contact with evil, the baptism of fire, 
beside the crown of sorrow, the dread hiding of the 
Father's countenance in portentous eclipse. And into 
this more than Egyptian darkness Jesus delighted to 
enter, for the sake of fallen man. When he assumed 
the form of a servant, and, actually incarnate, entered 
upon the work of redemption, it was with no reluctant 
step, in no hireling spirit: It was his meat and his 
drink ; as necessary and pleasing to him as his daily 
sustenance, to do the will of his Father which was in 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 151 

heaven. Steadily pursuing one purpose, he was heed- 
less of all that hindered ; he felt irrepressible longings 
for its accomplishment ; and his soul was like a prisoned 
bird that dashes itself for freedom against the grating 
of the cage : " I have a baptism to be baptized with ; 
how am I straitened till it be accomplished." Steadily 
pursuant of that purpose, he was heedless of all that 
hindered. Now passing through a threatening mob, 
now turning from an offered crown, now resisting wisely 
the temptations of the enemy, now casting behind him 
the more dangerous, because more affectionate remon- 
strances of his disciples, and now repelling the sugges- 
tive aid of twelve legions of angels from heaven. Oh, 
as sinners like ourselves, at far off, reverent distance, 
watch him in his redemptive course — as, one wave after 
another wave, the proud waters go over his soul, and 
he dashes off the spray, and holds on his course, unfal- 
tering and steady, to the end — with what depth of 
gratitude should we render him the homage of our 
hearts, and with what earnestness and self-accusation 
should we take to ourselves the burden of every 
melancholy sigh ! 

" For all his wounds to sinners crj^ 
I suffered this for you." 

III. I observe, thirdly, the Saviour's assumption of 

HUMANITY WAS NOT ONLY CONDESCENDING AND VOLUN- 
TARY, but it was complete. It was no mock assump- 
tion of humanity. The whole nature was taken on. 



152 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

He had a human body with all its infirmities ; he had a 
human soul with its completeness of faculty and its 
capability of endurance, with its every capacity, with 
its every affection. There were three reasons which 
seemed to render this entire assumption of human 
nature necessary. It was necessary, first, because the 
man had sinned, and upon the man, therefore must 
come the brand, of Jehovah's displeasure. It was neces- 
sary, secondly, that the world might have the best and 
utmost manifestation of God, and that humanity, too 
gross and bewildered to comprehend ideas that were 
purely spiritual, might see in the Incarnate Son the 
highest embodied possibility of being. It was neces- 
sary, thirdly, that the felt need of the people in all ages 
of the world's history might be supplied — the need of 
perfect pureness allied to perfect sympathy — of the 
strength which was omnipotent to deliver, married to 
the tenderness that was brave and deep to feel. The 
complete humanity of Jesus has been attested by abun- 
dant authentications. In every legitimate sense of the 
word he was a maa with man. He did not take our 
sinful nature upon him; that is only an inseparable 
accident of humanity; it came in after the creation, 
and it should go out before the end. Therefore, in 
every legitimate sense of the word, he was man with 
man. He was born helpless as other children are. His 
early years were spent in the house o his reputed 
father, working at his handicraft for bread. He grew 
in wisdom and in stature as other children grow ; not at 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 153 

once, but by the slow ripening of years developed into 
the maturity of man. When he entered on his public 
ministry and went out among his fellows, he sustained, 
as they did, the relationships of mutual dependence 
and help. He was no self-elected reformer. He was 
no turbulent inflamer of unholy passions. Faulty as 
was the government under which he lived, he was a 
loyal subject, paid the tribute money without murmur- 
ing, and submitted himself to every ordinance of man. 
He was no dark ascetic ; he was a brother of the multi- 
tudes, mingling in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. 
If men invited him to their houses, he went and sat 
down with them at their boards. If they asked him to 
their marriage festivals, he graced them with his pre- 
sence, and turned the water into wine ; and mingled his 
tears with theirs when the light of their homes was 
quenched, and when some loved one was suddenly 
withdrawn. His care for them who trusted him ceased 
not with his own danger, for, having loved his own, he 
loved them to the end. His filial affection was conspi- 
cuous throughout every part of his life, and shone 
radiant as a star through the darkness of his agony. 
He was the man Christ Jesus. How is it that you 
identify him with our nature ? "What are the peculiar 
characteristics by which you understand that such a 
one is partaker of humanity? Does human nature 
hunger ? He hungered in the plain where the delusive 
fig-tree grew. Does human nature thirst ? He felt the 
pang sharply upon the cross. Is human nature wearied 



154: THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

under the pressure of travelling and of toil ? He sat 
thus upon the well. Does human nature weep unbid- 
den tears ? Pity wrung them from him as he gazed 
upon the fated and lost Jerusalem ; and sorrow wrung 
them from him at the grave where Lazarus lay. Does 
human nature shrink and fear in the prospect of im- 
pending trial, cowering beneath the apprehended peril, 
and pray that dread pangs may be spared it ? In the 
days of his flesh, when he poured out his supplications 
with strong crying and tears, " he was heard, in that he 
feared." He was the man Christ. Come, ye seekers 
after the sublime, behold this man — marred enough by 
sorrow, but not at all by sin ; decorated with every 
grace, yet disfigured by no blemish of mortality ; ray- 
ing out warmth and life into the hearts and homes of 
men ; with not an act that you can trace up to selfish- 
ness, and not a word that you can brand as insincere ; 
with his whole life of kindness, and his death an expia- 
tion — behold the Divine Man ! Talk of the dignity of 
human nature — it is there, and you can find it nowhere 
in the universe beside. "The boast of heraldry, the 
pomp of power," the skill to make canvas speak or 
marble breathe, or to play upon men's hearts as upon a 
harp of many tunes, the mad ambition that would climb 
to fame by slopes where the trampled lie, and where 
the red rain drops from many a heart's blood — what are 
their claims to his ? Hush, ye candidates for greatness, 
and let him speak alone. Erase meaner names from 
thy tablets, thou applauding world, and chronicle this 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 155 

name instead. Shrine it in your living hearts, those of 
yon who trust in his atonement, and who come by his 
mediation unto God ; grave it there, deeper than all 
other names — the man Christ Jesus. 

IV. I observe, fourthly, the incarnation of the 
Saviour was not only condescending, and voluntary, 

and complete, but it was also, and chiefly, atoning. 

The great purpose for which he came into the world 
could not be properly accomplished but through death. 
It was through death that he was to destroy him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil. Intimations 
of this had come previously into the world, in the 
visions of seers, from the lips of prophets, in the adum- 
brations and typical shadowings of some great Offerer, 
who, in the end of the world, should appear to put away 
sin by the sacrifice of himself. All other purposes, how- 
ever separably noticeable, become subordinate and sub- 
sidiary to this. Hence Christ did not become partaker 
of flesh and blood that he might give to the world a 
spotless example. Although holiness, illustrious and 
unspotted, does beam out from every action of his life, 
he was not incarnate in order that he might impress 
upon the world the teachings of pure morality ; although 
such were the spirituality of his lessons, and the power 
wi^h which he taught them, that " never man spake 
like this man." He did not assume our nature merely 
that he might work his healing wonders, showing, 
before the bleared vision of the world, omnipotence in 
beneficent action. All these things, however separably 



156 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

noticeable, were not vast enough or grand enough to 
have brought the Saviour from heaven. Miracles, pre- 
cepts, kindnesses, all these were collateral blessings — 
flowers that sprung up, as at the tread of the fabled, 
goddess, wherever he appeared. Large and full in his 
sight, through all the years of his incarnate life, more 
distinctly, more vividly, in the last years of his ministry, 
loomed the shadow of the figure of the cross : " That is 
the end of my toil; that is the consummation of my 
purpose, I am straitened till I get to that ; I have not 
fulfilled my mission and expressed all the Divine energy 
that I am to pour out upon the world until I reach that. 
There is the goal of all my endeavors ; there I see 
my true office before me — the surety of insolvent 
humanity, the friend of a forsaken race, the refuge and 
succor of endangered man." If you will think for a 
while, you will see how all the other characteristics of 
the incarnation converged here, and were each of them 
necessary in order to give this, the master-purpose, its 
efficacy and its power. It was necessary that a being 
of holy estate should condescend, Divinity sustaining 
humanity under the pressure of agony, and imparting to 
humanity a plenitude of atoning meritoriousness. It 
was necessary that the offering should be voluntary, 
because there could be no availableness in exacted suf- 
fering ; and the offering must be profoundly willing 
before it could be infinitely worthy. It was necessary 
that the whole nature should be taken on, because the 
man had sinned and the man must die ; and as 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 157 

humanity, in its federal representative, the first Adam, 
had been drawn to death, so humanity, in its federal 
representative, the second Adam, might have the free 
gift coming upon all men unto justification of life. 

Now, you see how far we have got in our search for 
an accepted propitiation. ¥e have got a willing vic- 
tim. "We have got a willing victim in the nature that 
had sinned ; we have got a willing victim in the nature 
that had sinned with no obligation of his own, and all 
whose merit, therefore, could be to spare for the redemp- 
tion of the sinner. Justice herself required only another 
exaction, and that is, that this willing victim should be 
free from taint, whether of hereditary or actual crime. 
Now, the miraculous conception freed from the heredi- 
tary taint of human nature ; and, thus freed from 
hereditary defilement, he was born, not of blood, not in 
the ordinary method of human generation, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 
And he moved about in the midst of his fellows in an 
atmosphere of impurity, yet escaping its contagion. 
Like the queenly moon shining down upon the haunts 
of beggars, and dens of thieves, yet preserving its 
chastity and its brilliance unimpaired, he moved among 
the scum and offscouring of human society, and could 
say, " "Which of you convicteth me of sin P He was 
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners ; evoking 
from heaven its attesting thunders ; charming the won- 
dering earth with spotlessness which it had never seen 
before ; and (crown of triumph !) wringing from baffled 



158 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

demons the reluctant acknowledgment, "We know thee 
who thou art, the Holy One of God." Here, then, is 
the perfected offering — a willing victim ; a willing 
victim in the nature that had sinned, and free from 
taint, free from obligation, man's -eternal Saviour, God's 
incarnate Son. Follow him in the shadow of his pas- 
sion. Close upon the agony of Gethsemane came his 
arrest by the treachery of one whom he had honored. 
Patiently he bears the ribaldry and insult in the dis- 
honored judgment-hall of Pilate. Wearily he treads 
the pathway to Calvary, bearing his own cross. !Xow, 
the cross is reared. The multitude are gathered about 
the hill of shame. The nails are fastened into the 
quivering flesh ; and in agony and torture ebbs his pure 
life away. The last ministering angel leaves him, for he 
must tread the wine-press alone. Darkness gathers sud- 
denly round ; and — oh, mystery of mystery ! — the 
Father hides his face from the Beloved. Darkness 
deepens in the sky and in the mind — how long, the 
affrighted gazers know not. A cry bursts through the 
gloom, sharp, shrill, piercing. All is silent — it is 
finished ! The night, that had climbed up strangely to 
the throne of noon, as suddenly dispersed. The multi- 
tude, that eager and wondering had gathered round the 
hill of shame, separated to their several homes, talking 
about the tragedy they had witnessed. The moon rose 
on high as calmly as if the sun had not set on a scene of 
blood. But, oh ! what a change those few hours had 
wrought in the fortunes of the world. Christ had died, 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 159 

the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. 
Go, tell it to that despairing sinner — that .man, I mean, 
who has the cord about his neck, and the pistol at his 
throat, who is just about to escape from the terrible har- 
rowings of an alarmed conscience, by the dreadful alter- 
native of self-murder. Go to him ; be quick ; tell him 
he need not die, for Christ has died, has died to bear his 
sins away. Proclaim salvation from the Lord for 
wretched dying men. Sound it out from the summit 
of that hill-side of Calvary, and let the sister hills echo 
it, until round the earth has spread the rapturous 
hosanna — Salvation ! Go with it to the wretched, and 
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; it is just the 
thing they need — Salvation ! Ring it out through every 
avenue of this vast metropolis of a world, till it rouse 
the slumbering dust, and awake the coffined dead — 
Salvation ! Take it to your own hearts — be sure of 
that; and, in the fullness of your own experience, let us 
hear your song : " There is, therefore, now no condem- 
nation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 

How is it with you, brethren ? How is it with you 
to-night ? Have you any personal interest in the incar- 
nation of the Saviour? Has the realizing change by 
which you are enabled to understand the purposes of 
the Saviour's advent come upon your heart % Have the 
purposes of his advent been fulfilled in yonr experience ? 
He came " to destroy him that had the power of death," 
that is, the devil — to counter-work him on his own 



160 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

ground ; is he slain in you — vanquished and overcome 
in you ? He came " to deliver them who through fear 
of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage ;" are 
you freed from the tyranny ? Have you entered into 
the liberty wherewith Christ has promised to make you 
free ? He has accomplished his purpose. Many a one 
has gone blithely to the stake in the name of Jesus ; 
many a one has marched steadily with eyes open to 
meet the last enemy, trusting in Jesus. No, not much 
fear of death about Stephen, when in the gloom of that 
fierce council he looked up and saw heaven opened, and 
the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the throne 
of God, and all that were in the council, looking stead- 
fastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an 
angel. Not much fear of death in Paul. That is more 
patent to your experience, perhaps ; for he was a blas- 
phemer once, we know — a persecutor once, an injurious 
man once ; but he obtained mercy, and he is presented 
in what I take to be one of the sublimest passages of 
Scripture: "I am in a strait betwixt two" — frail, 
erring, sinful, mortal man poised, so to speak, in balance 
between both worlds, having the choice of either, and 
not knowing which to take — " I am in a strait betwixt 
two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, 
which is far better ; but to remain in the flesh is more 
needful for you." Not much fear of death there. He 
came "to deliver them who, through fear of death, 
were all their life-time subject to bondage." How is it 
with you ? Does the Spirit take of the things of Christ 



THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 161 

and show them to you? Does he witness to you of 
your own personal adoption into the family of God ? If 
you hesitate to say that, can you say, as the old woman, 
in Scotland said, when questioned upon the fact of her 
adoption : " I can say this : either I am changed or the 
world is changed." Can you say that? Has the 
cautery begun its work? Is the proud flesh getting 
eaten out by the live coal from the altar ? Are you 
ceasing to do evil and learning to do well— bringing 
forth fruits meet for repentance ? Do you hate sin with 
ever-increasing hatred, and press forward to the cultiva- 
tion of the things that are of good report and lovely ? 
Alas ! it will be sad for you if the incarnation of Christ 
should be to you a mystery forever, if there be no light 
coming upon his purposes, no experience of the fulfill- 
ment of them in your own hearts. Oh, seek first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness. Hallow this 
dedicatory service by the dedication of your own hearts 
to God. Let there be this sacrifice, a living sacrifice, 
holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. 



VI. 
ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

"For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be 
sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us ; be- 
cause we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and 
that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again." — 2 Cor. 
v. 13-15. 

It is always an advantage for the advocate of any 
particular cause to know the tactics of his adversary 
He will be the better prepared for the onset, and repel 
the attack the more easily. Forewarned of danger, he 
will intrench himself in a position from which it will be 
impossible to dislodge him. The Apostle Paul pos- 
sessed this advantage in a very eminent degree. In the 
earlier years of his apostleship, the Jew and the Greek 
were the antagonists with whom he had to contend. 
Having been himself a member of the straitest sect of 
the Jews, he knew full well the antipathy with which 
they regarded anything which set itself by its simplicity 
in contrast with their magnificent ritual ; and he knew 
also the haughty scorn with which they turned away 
from what they deemed the unworthy accessories of the 

162 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 1C3 

JNazarene. And, well read as lie was in classic litera- 
ture, and acquainted with, all the habits and tendencies 
of the Grecian mind, he could readily understand how 
the restraints of the Gospel would be deemed imperti- 
nent by the voluptuous Corinthian, and how the 
philosophic Athenian would brand its teachers mad. 
And yet, rejoicing in the experimental acquaintance 
with the Gospel, he says, for his standing-point of ad- 
vantage : " We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a 
stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to 
them that are called, the power of God and the wisdom 
of God." And in the words of the text, addressing 
some of those very Corinthians upon whom the Gospel 
had exerted its power, he seems to accept the stigma 
and vindicate the glorious madness : " For whether we 
be beside ourselves, it is to God : or whether we be 
sober it is for your cause. For the love of Christ con- 
straineth us ; because we thus judge, that if one died 
for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, 
that they who live should not henceforth live unto them- 
selves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again/' 
The great purpose of the Apostle in these words is to 
impress upon us the fact that the cause of Christ in the 
world, sanctioned by the weight of so many obligations, 
fraught with the destinies of so many millions, should 
be furthered by every legitimate means ; that for it, if 
necessary, should be employed the soberest wisdom; 
and for it, if necessary, the most impassioned zeal. He 
vindicates the use of zeal in the cause of Christ by the 



164 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

three following considerations: First, from the condi- 
tion of the world ; secondly, from the obligations of the 
Church; and, thirdly, from the master-motive of the 
Saviour's constraining love. To illustrate and enforce 
this apostolic argument, as not inappropriate to the 
object which has called us together, will be our busi- 
ness for a few brief moments to-night. 

I. The Apostle argues and enforces the use of zeal in 
the cause of Christ, in the first place, from the condition 
of the world. The Apostle speaks of the world as in a 
state of spiritual death. He argues the universality of 
this spiritual death from the universality of the atone- 
ment of Christ. " For the love of Christ constraineth 
us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then 
were all dead " — dead in sin, with every vice luxuriant 
and every virtue languishing ; dead in law, judicially 
in the grasp of the avenger ; nay, " condemned already," 
and hastening to the second death. "We need not re- 
mind you that this is by no means the world's estimate 
of its own condition. It is short-sighted, and, therefore, 
self-complacent. There is a veil over its eye ; there is 
a delusion at its heart. In that delusion it fancies itself 
enthroned and stately, like some poor lunatic, an 
imaginary monarch under the inflictions of its keeper. 
The discovery of its true position comes only when the 
mind is enlightened from on high. " "We thus judge," 
not because there is in us any intuitional sagacity, or 
any prophetical foresight, by which our judgment is 
made more accurate than the judgment of others; but 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 165 

the Holy Spirit has come down, has wrought upon us — 
has shown us the plague of our own hearts — and from 
the death within we can the better argue the death 
which exists around. And that this is the actual con- 
dition of the world, Scripture and experience combine 
to testify. The Bible, with comprehensive impartiality, 
concludes all "under sin ;" represents mankind as a seed 
of evil-doers — " children that are corrupters ;" — sheep 
that have wandered away from the Shepherd and Bishop 
of their souls. In the adjudication of Scripture there is 
no exemption from this common character of evil, and 
from this common exposure to danger. The man of 
merciful charities, and the woman of abandoned life — 
the proudest peer, and the vilest serf in his barony — the 
moralist observer of the decalogue, and the man-slayer, 
red with blood, all are comprehended in the broad and 
large denunciation: "Ye were by nature children of 
wrath, even as others." And out in the broad world, 
wherever the observant eye travels, you have abundant 
confirmation of the testimony of Scripture. You have 
it in your own history. The transgressions and sins 
which constitute this moral death abound in our age no 
less than in any former age of mankind. There are 
thousands around you who revel in undisguised corrup- 
tion. There are thousands more externally reputable 
who have only a name to live. You have this confirm- 
ation in the nations of the Continent — some safely bound 
by the superstition of ages ; others subsiding into a re- 
actionary skepticism. You have this confirmation 



166 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

further away in the countries which own Mohammedan 
rule, and cherish the Mohammedan's dream — where you 
have unbridled lust, and a tiger's thirst for blood. You 
have this confirmation in the far-off regions of heathen- 
ism proper, where the nature, bad in itself, is made a 
thousand-fold worse by its religion — where the man is 
the prey of every error, and the heart the slave of every 
cruelty — where men live in destruction, and where men 
die in despair. Travel where you will, visit the most 
distant regions, and search under the shadow of the 
highest civilization — penetrate into the derjths of those 
primeval forests, into whose original darkness you might 
have imagined the curse would hardly penetrate, and 
the result is uniformly the same. Death is everywhere. 
You see it, indeed, in all its varieties ; now in the rare 
and fading beauty which it wears just after the spirit 
has fled from the clay, when its repose seems the worn- 
out casket, which the soul has broken, and thrown away ; 
now, when there is shed over it a hue of the sublime, 
and it is carried amid tears to burial ; and now, when 
corruption has begun its work, and its ill odor affects 
the neighborhood, and spreads the pestilence — you see 
it in all its varieties, but uniformly death is there. "We 
gather from our melancholy pilgrimage no vestige of 
spiritual life. Mourners go about the streets, and there 
are mourners over many tombs. 

Although, as we have observed just now, a thorough 
and realizing estimate of the world's condition comes 
only when the judgment is enlightened from on high, 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 167 

the wise men of the world, the minds that have in all 
ages towered above their fellows, have felt an unsatisfac- 
toriness for which they conld hardly acconnt ; they have 
had a vague and morbid conscionsness that all was not 
right somehow, either with themselves or with their 
race ; they have met with disturbing forces, signs of 
irregularity, tokens of misery and of sin that hare 
ruffled, somewhat, the philosophic evenness of their 
minds. Each in his own way, and from his own stand- 
point, has guessed at the solution of the problem, and 
has been ready with a suggested remedy. The peoples 
are imbruted ; educate them. The nations are bar- 
barous ; civilize them. Men grovel in sensual pleasure; 
cultivate the aesthetic faculty ; open up to them galleries 
of pictures ; bring them under the humanizing influ- 
ences of art. Men groan in bondage ; emancipate them, 
and bid them be free ! Such are some of the tumul- 
tuous cries that have arisen from earnest but blind 
philanthropists, who have ignored the spiritual part of 
man's nature, and forgotten altogether the Godward 
relations of his soul. All these, as might have been 
expected, valuable enough as auxiliaries, worth some- 
thing to promote the growth and comfort of a man when 
life has been once imparted, fail, absolutely fail to 
quicken the unconscious dead. In all cases the bed has 
been shorter than that a man could lie on it, and the 
covering narrower than that he could wrap himself in 
it. The inbred death lay too deep for such superficial 
alchemy; corpses cannot by any possibility animate 



168 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHIUST. 

corpses ; and the compassionate bystander from other 
worlds, sickened with the many inventions, might be 
constrained to cry, "Amid all this tumult of the human, 
O for something Divine !" And the Divine is given — 
Christ has died for all men. There is hope for the 
world's life. This is a death whereby we live ; this is a 
remedy commensurate with existing need, and intended 
entirely to terminate and extinguish that need. 

That squalid savage, whose creed is a perpetual 
terror, and whose life is a perpetual war — Christ hath 
died for him. That fettered and despairing slave, into 
whose soul the iron has entered, valued by his base 
oppressor about on a par with the cattle he tends, or 
with the soil he digs — Christ hath died for him. That 
dark blasphemer, who lives in familiar crime, whose 
tongue is set on fire of hell, whose expatriation would 
be hailed by the neighborhood around him as a boon of 
chiefest value — Christ has died for him. That dark 
recluse, whom an awakened conscience harasses, and 
who, in the vain hope of achieving merit by suffering, 
wastes himself with vigilant penance well-nigh to the 
grave— Christ has died for him. Oh, tell these tidings 
to the world, and it will live. Prophesy of this name 
in the motionless valley, and the Divine Spirit who 
always waits to do honor to Jesus, will send the afflatus 
from the four winds of heaven, and they shall leap into 
life to his praise. 

Now take these two points. Think, in the first place, 
of the condition of the world— a condition so disastrous, 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 169 

that nothing but death can illustrate it — a condition 
which prostrates every faculty, which smites the body 
with unnumbered cruelties, which dwarfs the mind with 
prejudices or distorts it into unholy passion, which 
banishes the soul and mind within a man in hopeless 
estrangement from happiness and God ; and then think 
of the death of Christ, providing for the furthest need, 
overtaking the utmost exile, pouring its abundant life 
upon the sepulchred nations, diffusing light, liberty, 
hope, comfort, heaven : and I appeal to your enlightened 
judgment whether you are not bound, those of you who 
believe in Jesus, to labor for the world's conversion 
with intensest energy and zeal. Oh, if temporal miseries 
elicit sympathy, and prompt to help ; if the anxieties of 
a neighborhood gather around a drowning child, or are 
fastened upon the rafters of a burning house, where, 
solitary and imploring, stands a single man, already 
charred by the flame, how much of sympathy, of effort, 
of liberality, of zeal, of prayer, are due to a world lying 
in the wicked one, and panting after the second death ! 
You will agree with me, that there is more than 
license for the poet's words : 

" On such a theme, 
'Tis impious to be calm !" 

And you will rejoice — will you not? — to take your 
stand, to-night by the Apostle's side, and to cry, when 
men deem your zeal impertinence and your efforts 

8 



170 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

fanaticism, " If we be beside ourselves, it is to God : 
and if we be sober, it is for jour cause." 

II. The Apostle argues the necessity for zeal in the 
cause of Christ, secondly, from the obligations of the 
church, in that he died for all, that they should live — 
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but for him 
who died for them and rose again. The Apostle's 
argument is this — none of us has life in himself ; if we 
live at all, we live by imparted life ; we live because 
life has been drafted into our spirits from on high. 
Then it is not our own ; it belongs to Him who has pur- 
chased it for us with his own blood, and we are bound 
to employ it in his service, and for his glory. This also 
is the conclusion of an enlightened judgment. "We 
judge this as well as the other, and this is in accordance 
with the whole tenor of Scripture. Time would fail us 
to mention a tithe of the passages in which devotion — 
the devotion of the heart and of the service of God, are 
made matter of constant and of prominent demand. I 
will just mention one passage that may serve as an 
illustration of all : "I beseech you therefore, brethren, 
by the mercies of God, that ye give your bodies as a 
living sacrifice." Have you ever ganged the depth of 
consecration that slumbers in the heart of those words — 
" a living sacrifice ;" to be absolutely and increasingly 
devoted to God, as if the knife were at the throat, and 
the life-blood streamed forth in votive offering ? !N"ay, 
better than that ; because the life-blood could stream 
out but once, but the living sacrifice may be a perpetual 



ZEAL Iff THK CAUSE OF CHRIST. 171 

holocaust, repeated daily for a lifetime — a living sacri- 
fice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your 
reasonable service. From the doctrine of this passage, 
and of numberless others kindred to it, it would appear 
that ihe regenerate heart is not at liberty to live for 
itself, nor to aim supremely at its own gratification ; it 
must live for him who has " died for it, and who has 
risen again." You cannot fail, I think, to perceive that 
compliance with this exhortation is utterly antagonistic 
to the ordinary procedure of mankind. 

In an age of organization against idolatry, there is 
one proud, rampant idolatry which retains its ascen 
dency amongst us. Selfishness is the most patronized 
idolatry in the world. It is the great image whose 
brightness is exceeding terrible, and before which all 
men bow ; it is a throne, and an empire, and the like- 
ness of a kingly crown ; it equips armies and mans 
armaments to gratify its lust of power. Fastnesses 
have been explored and caverns ransacked to appease 
its thirst for gold. It presides over the councils of 
kings and over the diplomacy of cabinets ; for it the 
merchantman grindeth down his manhood, for it the 
tread er-under-foot of nations marcheth in his might and 
in his shame ; its votaries are of all handicrafts — of the 
learned professions, and of every w T alk in life. It hath 
sometimes climbed on to the judgment-seat, and per- 
verted justice there. The cowled monk hath hidden it 
beneath his robe, and it hath become for him an engine 
of oppression, and it hath occasionally robed itself in 



172 ZEAL IN THB CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

holy vestments, and entered the priest's office for a 
morsel of bread. ~No grace nor virtue of humanity is 
free from its contamination. It has breathed, and 
patriotism has degenerated into partisanship ; it has 
breathed, and friendship has been simulated for policy ; 
it has breathed, and charity has been blemished by 
ostentation ; it has breathed, and religion lias been 
counterfeited for gold ; its sway is a despotism — its ter- 
ritory wherever man hath trodden, and it is the undis- 
puted anarch of the world. ISTow it is against this 
principle in human nature, throned within us all, 
doggedly contesting every inch of ground, that Christ- 
ianity goes forth to combat. The Gospel absolutely 
refuses to allow self to be the governing power, and 
assaults it in all its strongholds with precepts of 
sublime morality. To the selfishness of avarice it goes 
up boldly, even while the miser clutches his gold, and 
says : " Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him 
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." To 
the selfishness of anger it addresses itself, even when 
the red spot is yet on the brow of the angry : " Let not 
the sun go down upon thy wrath ;" " Bless them that 
curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and 
persecute you." To the selfishness of pride, even in its 
haughtiness and arrogance, it says : " In honor prefer- 
ring one another, be clothed with humility, let each 
esteem another better than himself." To the selfishness 
of indifference to the concerns of others, " Look not on 
thine own things, but likewise upon the things of 



ZEAL rN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 173 

others;" and to the selfishness of souls and criminal 
neglect of the great salvation, it speaks- in tones of 
pathos which that must be a callous heart that ean 
withstand, "Ye know the graces of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who, though he was rich, yet for our sins he 
became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be 
mad© rich." Oh, how small, alongside of august and 
heavenly precepts like these, are the sublimest maxims 
of any merely ethical morality ! 

It is said that, once, during the performance of a 
comedy in the Roman theatre, one of the actors gave 
utterance to the sentiment, " I am a man ; nothing, 
therefore, that is human, can be foreign to me," and the 
audience were so struck by the disinterestedness, or so 
charmed by the novelty, that they greeted it with thun- 
ders of applause. How much greater wealth of kindly 
wisdom and prompting to unselfish action lies hidden 
in the Gospel of Christ, shrined there as every-day 
utterances passed by the most of us very slightingly 
by ! Oh ! let there be anything like the genial prac- 
tice of this divine morality, and the world would soon 
lose its aspect of desolation and of blood ; oppression and 
over-reaching, and fraud and cruelty, would be frowned 
out of the societies of men, and this earth would be 
once more an ample and a peopled paradise. By 
selfishness, as we have thus endeavored to describe it, 
we mean that grasping, monopolizing spirit which gets 
all and gives nothing ; heedful enough of its own for- 
tunes, careless of the concerns and interests of others. 



174 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

This is the principle in our nature which Christianity 
opposes, and with which it ceaselessly wages war. But 
there is a sort of selfishness which, for the sake of dis- 
tinction, we may call self-love, which is instinctive, and 
therefore innocent — that merciful provision by which 
we are prompted to the care of our own lives and to the 
avoidance of everything that would disquiet or abridge 
them. This principle in our nature Christianity encou- 
rages ; to this principle Christianity addresses itself; 
and hence it has connected, married in indissoluble 
union, man's chiefest duty and man's highest pleasure. 
Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the pro- 
mise of the life that now is. What has the dark, mor- 
bid, unhappy sensualist to do with it ? Godliness hath 
the promise of the life " that now is," as well as " that 
which is to come." In keeping thy commandments 
there is a present reward. " Take my yoke upon you 
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and 
ye shall find rest unto your souls ; for my yoke is easy 
and my burden is light." " In thy presence there is 
fullness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore." Just as it is in man's physical organiza- 
tion, and its adaptation to the material world around 
him, when body and mind are alike in health, we can 
neither eat, nor drink, nor talk, nor walk, nor sleep, nor 
sing, nor perform any of the commonest actions of life, 
without a sensation of pleasure ; so it is in the spiritual 
life : there is pleasure in its every motion. There is 
pleasure even in the sting of penitence ; it is 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 175 

" A godly grief and pleasing smart, 
That melting of a broken heart." . 

There is pleasure in the performance of duty ; there is 
pleasure in the enjoyment of privilege ; there is pleasure 
in the overcoming of temptations, a grand, thrill of 
happiness to see trampled under foot a vanquished lust 
or slain desire ; there is pleasure in the exercise of bene- 
volence ; there is pleasure in the importunity of prayer. 
Hence it is that the Apostle seeks to rivet the sense of 
personal obligation by the remembrance of personal 
benefit. " We thus judge, that he died for all, that 
they which live should not henceforth live unto them- 
selves, but unto him who " — owns them ? No. Claims 
them? ~No. Will judge them? ISTo ; but— " to him 
who died for them and rose again." Gratitude is to be 
the best prompter to our devotion. Those who live to 
Christ, those who live by Christ, will not tamely see his 
altars forsaken, his Sabbaths desecrated, his name blas- 
phemed, the blood of the covenant wherewith he was 
sanctified accounted an unholy thing. Brethren, are 
you of that happy family ? Have you obtained life 
from the dead through his name ? Then you are bound 
to spend it for his honor, and, watching with godly 
jealousy for every possible opportunity of doing good, 
to spend and be spent for them who have not yet your 
Master known. I call on you to answer this invocation ; 
it belongs to you. There is no neutrality, believe me, 
in this war — and if there be some of you that would 
like to be dastardly and half-hearted trimmers, you will 



176 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

find by and by that you have got the hottest place in 
the battle, exposed to the cross-fire from the artillery of 
both parties. I call on you decisively to-night to 
answer this invocation. Call up before your minds the 
benefits you have individually received; think of the 
blessings which the death of Christ has procured for 
you — the removal of the blighting curse which sha- 
dowed all your life, the present sense of pardon, 
mastery over self and over sin, light in the day of your 
activity, and songs in the night of your travail ; the 
teaching Spirit to lead you into still loftier knowledge, 
and the sanctifying spirit to impress upon you the 
image of the heavenly ; that Divine fellowship which 
lightens the present, and that majestic hope which 
makes the future brighter far. Think of the benefits 
which the resurrection of Christ has conferred upon 
you ; light in the shadowed valley, the last enemy 
destroyed, support amid the swellings of Jordan, a 
guide upon the hither side of the flood, angelic wel- 
comes, the King in his beauty, and " a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." And then, as the 
sum of favor is presented, and gratitude arises and the 
fire burns, and the heart is full, and the frame quivers 
with the intensity of its emotions, just remember that 
there is a world lying in the wicked one, that there are 
multitudes, thousands upon thousands, in your own 
city, at your own doors, for whom the Saviour died, 
who never heard his name ; that there are multitudes 
for whom he has abolished death who have never felt 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 177 

his resurrection's power. Let your tears now ; better, 
far better a tear for God's sake and the world's sake 
than the hard-heartedness and darkness of sin. Lift np 
your voice in the midst of them; lift it up, be not 
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, " Behold your 
God." Men will call you mad, but you can give them 
the Apostle's answer, " If we be beside ourselves, it is 
to God ; if we be sober, it is for your cause." 

m. The Apostle argues the necessity of zeal in the 
cause of Christ, in the third place, from the master 
motive of the Saviour's constraining love. "The 
love of Christ constrain eth us" — forces us along, car- 
ries us away as with the impetuosity of a torrent, or 
rather as when cool heavens and favoring air speed the 
vessel steadily to the haven. Love is at once man's 
most powerful motive and his highest inspiration, both 
in the life that now is and that which is to come. From 
love to Christ spring the most devoted obedience, the 
most untiring efforts in his service. There are other 
springs of action, I know, by which men are influenced 
to a profession of religion. Interest can occasionally 
affect godliness from sordid aims, and behave itself 
decorously amid the respectabilities of the temple-going 
and alms-giving religion; but it will give its arm to 
any man that goes down to the house of Rimmon ; and 
if there is a decree that at the sound of all kinds of 
music they are to fall down before another image which 
has been erected in the plains of Dura, they will be the 
most obsequious benders of the knee. Men sometimes 

S* 



178 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

practise obedience under the influence of fear. A sud- 
den visitation, a prevailing epidemic, an alarming ap- 
peal, will strike into momentary concern ; but when 
the indignation is overpast, and the craven soul has 
recovered from its paroxysms of terror, there will often 
be a relapse into more than the former atrocities of evil. 
Convictions of duty may and sometimes will induce a 
man, like an honest Pharisee of the olden time, to ob- 
serve rigidly the enactments of the law ; but there will 
be no heart in his obedience, and no holy passion in his 
soul ; but let the love of God be shed abroad in his 
heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him, let there be 
a perception of love in God, let there be sight of the 
Crucified as well as of the cross, and there will be dis- 
interested, and cheerful, and hearty obedience. Zeal 
for God will become at once a passion and a principle, 
intensifying every purpose into ardor, and filling the 
whole soul with the vehemence of absorbing desire. 
This is the emotion from whose natural and inevitable 
outflow the Apostle vindicates impassioned zeal. 

Opinions are divided 'as to whether the constraining 
love spoken of in the text, refers to Christ's love to us 
or to our love to him, which the sense of his love has 
enkindled in the soul. I do not think we can go far 
wrong if we take both meanings, inasmuch as no prin- 
ciple of exposition is violated, and as we need the pres- 
sure of a combination of motive, that we may be zeal- 
ously affected always in this good thing. Ye, then, if 
there are any of you here who need rousing to energy 



ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 179 

in the service of Christ, think of his love to you ; how 
rich its manifestations, and how unfeigned ; how all 
other love of which it is possible for you to conceive 
shrinks in the comparison ! There have been develop- 
ments in the histories of years of self-sacrificing affec- 
tion, which has clung to the loved object amid hazard 
and suffering, and which has been ready even to offer 
up life in its behalf. Orestes and Pylades, Damon and 
Pythias, David and Jonathan, what lovely episodes 
their histories give us amid a history of selfishness and 
sin ! Men have canonized them, partly because such 
instances are rare, and partly because they are like a 
dim hope of redemption looming from the ruins of the 
fall. "We have it on inspired authority, indeed, " Greater 
love hath no man than this " — this is the highest point 
which man can compass, this is the culminating point 
of that affection which man can by possibility attain, 
the apex of his loftiest pyramid goes no higher than 
this — " greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friend ; but God commendeth 
his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died for us." A brother has sometimes made 
notable efforts to retrieve a brother's fortunes, or to 
blanch his sullied honor ; but there is a Friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother. A father has bared his 
breast to shield his offspring from danger, and a mother 
would gladly die for the offspring of her womb ; but a 
father's affection may fail in its strength, and yet more 
rarely a mother's in its tenderness. 



180 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

" I saw an aged woman, bowed 
'Mid weariness and care ; 
Time wrote in sorrow on her brow, 
And 'mid her frosted hair. 

*' What was it that like sunbeam clear 
O'er her wan features ran, 
As, pressing toward her deafened ear, 
I named her absent son ? 

" What was it ? Ask a mother's breast, 
Through which a fountain flows, 
Perennial, fathomless, and blest, 
By winter never froze. 

" What wa3 it ? Ask the King of kings, 
Who hath decreed above, 
What change should mark all earthly things 
Except a mother's love !" 

And " can a woman forget her sucking child, that she 
should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." O 
Jesus of Nazareth, who can declare thee ? " Herein is 
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and 
sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Think 
of that love — love which desertion could not abate — 
love which ingratitude could not abate — which treach- 
ery could not abate — love which death could not de- 
stroy — love which, for creatures hateful and hating one 
another, stooped to incarnation, and suffered want, and 
embraced death, and shrank not even from the loath- 
someness and from the humiliation of burial ; and then, 



ZBAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 181 

with brimming eye, and heart that is full, and wonder 
" "Why such love to me ?" you will indeed be ungrate- 
ful if you are not stirred by it to an energy of consecra- 
tion and endeavor, which may well seem intemperate 
zeal to the cool reckoners with worldly wisdom. Then 
take the other side of the argument ; take it as refer- 
ring to your love to Christ, which the sense of his love 
has enkindled in the soul. The deepest affection in the 
believing heart will always be the love of Jesus. The 
love of home, the love of friends, the love of letters, 
the love of rest, the love of travel, and all else, are 
contracted by the side of this master-passion. " A little 
deeper," said one of the veterans of the first Napoleon's 
old guard, when they were probing in his bosom for a 
bullet that had mortally wounded him, and he thought 
they were getting somewhere in the region of the heart 
—"a little deeper and you will find the Emperor." 
Engraven on the Christian's heart deeper than all other 
love of home or friends, with an ineffaceable impression 
that nothing can erase, you find the loved name of Jesus. 
Oh ! let this affection impel us, and who shall measure 
our diligence or repress our zeal I Love is not bound 
by rule ; there is no law that can bind it ; it is never 
below the precept, it is always up to the precept, but 
it always has a margin of its own. It does not calcu- 
late, with mathematical exactitude, with how little of 
obedience it can escape penalty and secure recompense ; 
like its Master it gives in princely style ; it is exuberant 
in it» manifestations ; there is always enough and to 



182 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

spare. And if meaner motive can prompt to heroic 
action — if from pure love of science astronomers can 
cross ocean familiarly, and dare encounter dangers, just 
that they may watch in distant climes the transit of a 
planet across the disc of the sun — and if botanists can 
travel into inhospitable climes and sojourn among in- 
hospitable men, only to gather specimens of their gor- 
geous flora — and if, with no motive but love of country, 
and no recompense save bootless tears and an undying 
name, a "Willoughby could sacrifice himself to blow up 
a magazine, and a Sarkeld could fire the Cashmere Gate 
at Delhi, surely we, with obligations incomparably 
higher, with the vows of profession on our lips, with 
death busy in the midst of us, and souls going down 
from our doors into a joyless and blasted immortality, 
ought to present our life-blood, if need be, for the cause 
of Christ, and for the good of souls. Let the scoffers 
spurn at us as they will ; we are far superior to such 
poor contumely. Heaven applauds our enthusiasm, and 
we can vindicate it in the Apostle's words : " If we be 
beside ourselves, it is to God ; and if we be sober, it is 
for your cause." 



VII. 
THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. 

" Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that 
I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the 
Strength of my heart, and my portion forever." — Psalm Ixxiii. 25, 26. 

"Mr flesh and my heart faileth." Who does not 
understand that? It is the common lot — the uniform 
and continual experience of the race. " The voice said, 
Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is 
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of 
the field ; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because 
the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it ; surely the peo- 
ple is grass." This announcement of mortality, coming 
thus solemnly in a voice from heaven, finds its echo in 
the experience of mortals themselves ; for however they 
may attempt to disguise it — with whatever study, per- 
severance, and hypocrisy they may conceal their feel- 
ings — it is an undeniable and startling truth that the liv- 
ing know that they must die. Death, my brethren, is a 
theme of mighty import. Eloquence has been exhausted 
upon the wide-spread magnitude of its desolation ; there 
is not a place where human beings congregate which 
does not tell them that they are mortal. Is it a family ? 

183 



184: THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. 






Death enters and makes household memories painful, 
and turns home into the dwelling of the stranger. Is it 
a market-place? It is a busy, stirring throng which 
fills it as ever, but they are new faces that meet the eye, 
new voices which fall upon the ear. Is it a congrega- 
tion ? Our fathers, where are they ? The prophets, do 
they live forever ? Is it a world ? Every thirty years 
its mighty heart is changed in continual supercession ; 
one generation comes upon the heels of another, and the 
bones of our fathers form the dust on which we tread. 
And yet, strange to say, there is an almost universal 
listlessness upon the subject, and the saying of the poet 
seems well-nigh to be verified, that 

" All men think all men mortal but themselves." 

Look at the man of the world — does not he seem as 
if he thought he should live forever — as if he thought 
only on the paltry, perishable matters with which he 
happens to be surrounded % Circumstances may indeed 
now and then occur in his history which may compel a 
transient recognition of eternity : his eye may perhaps 
rest upon the Bible, or a funeral procession may cross 
his path as he walks the streets of the city, or a passing 
bell, with its slow and solemn tolling, may break sud- 
denly upon his ear, and the thought comes on his mind 
for a moment that there may possibly be such a thing 
as death. But it was but for a moment ; it was a stray 
thought of eternity — one whose advances are at once 
forbidden as an unwelcome intruder ; he was ruffled for 



THE CHRISTIAN S INHERITANCE. 185 

awhile — taken aback for an instant — but time passed 
away, and lie lias become as still, and as' slumbering, 
and as senseless as before. Brethren, we might rebuke 
that insensibility from the records of ancient history. 
It is recorded of Alexander, the conqueror of one world, 
that he wept because there was no other world to con- 
quer. Alas ! men now-a-days have sadly degenerated ; 
they have no such ambition, they mourn over no such 
cause of grief. However, there is, brethren, whether 
men reck of it or not, there is another world to conquer. 
The battle is not with the confused noise of w r ar, or gar- 
ments rolled in blood ; the enemies are not flesh and 
blood, but principalities and powers, and the rulers of 
the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in 
high places. The prize is not an earthly crown, but a 
kingdom of whose brilliancy the Macedonian never 
knew. Yet many never enter this battle-field, and 
many who do, after a few brief and ineffectual struggles, 
grow tired, and ingloriously lay down their arms. Bre- 
thren, we are anxious that you should not be thus 
cowardly in the day of battle ; we would have you quit 
yourselves like men and be strong ; and we know of 
nothing that is better calculated to arouse your forti- 
tude and bring into play that high and fearless heroism 
which we are exhorted by the Apostle to add to our 
faith, than the consolation of the words of the text, 
bringing before us, as they do, the Christian's personal 
inheritance, and hope, and future prospects : " Whom 
have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon 



186 

earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart 
faileth : but God is the strength of my heart, and my 
portion forever.'' 

"We need not spend time in endeavoring to prove to 
you, that it i& one characteristic of the wicked that 
" God is not in all his thoughts." He may not go so 
far as openly to deny either his being or intelligence, 
but could you search his heart you would discover it to 
be a matter of the supremest indifference. A faint 
whisper of the Divine existence never obtrudes itself 
into his schemes, whether of aggrandizement or plea- 
sure ; and he is content, so far as he is concerned, to 
enjoy the uncared-for inheritance of this world. Nay, 
oftentimes his presumption is more galling and flagrant 
still : aspiring to be his own deity, he pays homage to 
himself, and with Eastern devotion does he worship at 
the shrine of his idol. 

How, then, was this stray spirit to be Won back to 
God ? This was the question which engaged the Divine 
attention, and the answer to which became to the 
angelic host a matter of mystery and wonder. The law 
was undoubtedly powerless ; it had been broken, its re- 
quirements flagrantly violated, and wherever man went 
it proscribed him a fugitive and a rebel. Moreover, it 
is the tendency of the law rather to irritate than to heal 
• — rather to beget unfriendliness than tenderness toward 
the law-giver in the breast of the criminal. Hence you 
may bring God before the sinner's mind in his character 
of a God of judgment; yon may manifest to the sinner 



187 

the frowns of his angry countenance ; you may collect 
all the arguments of terror which language can gather? 
and you may arm these arguments of terror with addi- 
tional energy by descanting on the thunder of his 
power ; you may set before him the horrible spectacle 
of his own impending death, and the unknown horrors 
of that eternity which is on the other side ; you may 
disquiet him with all these appliances (and it is quite 
right he should be disquieted); you may induce a 
partial reformation of life and character (and it is neces- 
sary that he should reform) ; you may set him trembling 
at the power of the lawgiver (and a thousand times 
rather let him tremble than sleep) ; but where, in the 
midst of all this, is there obedience to the first and great 
commandment ? Is the love of God shed abroad in his 
heart ? Has it dawned upon the darkness of his mind ? 
has its gentle influence acted like a salutary and com- 
posing charm over his alarmed breast ? No ; all your 
appliances have failed, there has been no conviction im- 
planted except the conviction of fear. The thunders of 
executive justice and the power of judicial vengeance 
have failed to impress his heart ; there it is, like a fortress, 
firm, impregnable, granite-like on its adamantine rock ; 
and that which was intended to draw the soul into closer 
communion to God, has only driven him to a more hope- 
less distance from God. How, then, was this stray 
spirit to be won back to God? Oh, brethren, "what 
the law could not do, in that it was weak through the 
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful 



188 

flesh" — mark the words; not in the reality of sinful, 
but in the likeness of sinful, though in reality of human 
■ — " in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned 
sin in the flesh." By the mysterious incarnation of the 
Mighty One all difficulties were removed. The dignity 
of the throne remained unsullied, while the milder 
beams of mercy were made to fall upon it ; and God 
could at once be just, and yet the free and generous 
justifier of them that believe in Jesus. The all-com- 
prising offering of the Saviour's blood made at once an 
atonement, an at-one-ment between God and man. The 
moment the man exercises faith in Christ the reconcilia- 
tion is complete. The Lord is his defence; the holy 
one of Israel his refuge ; and he who a while ago was 
an alien, unredeemed and desolate — a worthy companion 
of the beast in his lair, a fit follower on the serpent's 
trail — is now clothed, in his right mind, careering along 
in the enterprise of godliness, a fellow-citizen of saints 
and of the household of God. And this brings us im- 
mediately to speak of our present meditation, God as 
the recompense of the believing soul. " Whom have I 
in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that 
I desire beside thee." 

We find three thoughts, my dear brethren, which 
tend forcibly to impress this matter upon our minds. 

I. In the first place, God is the Christian's inherit- 
ance as the light or his intellect. There is nothing 
for which man is more accountable than for his pos- 
session of mind — for his improvement and abuse of 



189 

those powers with which the mind is gifted. It is a 
beneficent gift from a beneficent Being, but, then, by 
partaking of the nature of the immortal, it entails upon 
him the responsibilities of an immortal also. Few are 
the subjects which it cannot penetrate ; difficulties but 
urge it to a course of loftier efforts, and, like the 
avalanche of snow, it gains additional momentum from 
the obstacles that threaten to impede it. Our position 
is this : Mind never finds its level, never finds its rest, 
until it is fixed upon the things above ; active, inquiring, 
speculative, impassioned ; like the eagle towering from 
his eyrie on the cliff, its course is right upward to the 
sun, and in the beams of uncreated light alone it finds 
its home, and its kindred, and its joy. The great pur- 
pose of man in the present world is to pass from a 
passive to an active state of being. And it is, in fact, 
this transition, effected by the agency of the Holy 
Spirit, which is that regeneration of which Scripture 
speaks. By nature, man is under the dominion of 
habit ; the Spirit brings him under the dominion of 
principle. By nature, a man exercises himself in all his 
doing without reference to God ; in grace, the Spirit 
dwells in the heart as the sanctifier and the guide. By 
nature, a man, under temporary impulses of master- 
passions, may put forth energies which awe a world, 
but they are of the earth, earthy ; but the Spirit, so to 
speak, implants heavenly ideas in his mind, and he gets 
power and capacity to think of God. By nature, the 
man cleaves to the dust, is conversant only with what is 



190 

contemptible and low,, and at last sinks into perdition ; 
in grace he draws himself up to his fall stature, asserts 
his native royalty, and, as a heaven-horn and heaven- 
tending subject, claims kindred with the King of the 
other world. In fine, by nature the man walks in dark- 
ness, the shadows of the night are around him, and he 
knoweth not whither he goeth ; in grace, the morning 
has broken delightfully on the steps of the traveller, 
and he is revived and invigorated by the light of 
day. 

Brethren, there is one point here which, if you are all 
like-minded with myself, you will hail with no common 
satisfaction. lam loth to part with those I love; I 
am loth to regard them as strangers, because they 
change their residence, and are just gone to live on the 
other side of the stream. I won't pay death the compli- 
ment of telling him he has divided the Church. He 
cannot do that. There is only one army of the living 
God: 

" Part of the host have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now ;" 

but it is one army ; there is but one body growing up 
into Christ — its living head. The head and the upper 
members in heaven, the lower members on earth ; but 
it is but one system and one body; and at no very 
distant period the whole body shall be drawn into the 
upper sanctuary, and stand out to the gaze of the 
admiring universe in the full stature of the perfect man. 
I hail with joy, therefore, anything that has a tendency 



191 

to bring me even in thought near to the loved and gone 
before. I welcome as the visit of a ministering angel 
the voice of kindness which brings me tidings from the 
realms where my friends are reposing. 

The thought, then, that gives me such satisfaction, is 
this, that now, even now, clogged as we are by the 
frailty and weakness of the body, we and those departed 
ones who have died in the faith are walking in the 
same light. We are told that the Lord is the light of 
his people in heaven ; we know that the Lord is the 
light of his people on earth. "We are told that the 
glory of the Lord is the sole illumination of the heavenly 
Jerusalem ; we know that the glory of the Lord illu- 
minates the earthly Zion ; the lamp of light above, the 
spirit of light beneath — the same light, for they are both 
God. There is a beauty in this conception — don't you 
see it ? — because it gives us the notion of alliance ; it 
repudiates the idea of this earth of ours as cast off from 
God's fatherhood, a shrouded and forgotten thing. It 
takes hold of it in its degradation, and fastens round it 
one end of the chain, the other end of which is bound 
to the throne of the Everlasting himself. And, oh ! is 
it not a beautiful thought, ay, while here to-night in the 
sanctuary we are opening our Bibles, and imploring 
the Spirit of God to shine down upon the truth, faith 
looks through the clouds — and they are very thin ones — 
and sees a host of bright spirits above, engaged in the 
same employment, desiring to look into the same things. 
We are one with them after all. The light Kiay fall, 



192 

the light does fall, with a more gushing flood-tide upon 
their eyes, but it is the same light. There they are, 
with the Great Teacher in the midst of them, poring 
everlastingly upon the tale of pleading love. Such 
students and such a teacher, who would not join ; and, 
as the light of the intellect, adopt at once and forever 
the words of the text : " Whom have I in heaven but 
thee? and there is none upon the earth that I desire 
beside thee." 

II. And then again, God is the Christian's inherit- 
ance, not only as the light of his intellect, but as the 
refuge of his conscience. Whenever human nature 
reflects on God, it must reflect on him as an object of 
distrust and dread. We think of him as a being of 
unimagined power, of enormous power ; we are igno- 
rant, moreover, how he stands affected toward us — and 
the fancy of ignorance will always be found to be the 
fancy of fear. The uncertainty in which the manner 
of his existence is shrouded, the vast extent of his 
creation, the wise and sage policy of his government, 
the retirement in which he dwells, the clouds and dark- 
ness that are round about his footstool, the inscrutable 
majesty which surrounds his throne — all these things 
have a tendency to inspire us with alarm, so that we 
may say with Job, " When I consider, I am afraid of 
him." The case might have been different in the 
primeval paradise, when the Lord walked in the garden 
in the cool of day ; but ever since he has withdrawn 
himself from mortal society, mortals view him with dis- 



193 

may ; and the Athenians only spoke the language of 
unassisted reason, when they reared their altar " to the 
unknown God." 

And if we appeal to nature, to the external world, to 
remove this distrustfulness of God, we shall find our- 
selves but little benefited. This, you know, is one of the 
very tritest prescriptions of the Theophilosophers and 
Latitudinarians of the present day. " Go to nature," 
they say ; " look at the external world ; see everything 
around you ; look there, and see written with pleasing 
characters that one great lesson of the universe, that 
God is love." Well, I will go to the external world, if 
such is to be the theme. I look around me, and I dis- 
cover many things upon which the eye can gaze, to 
which the ear can listen, upon which the heart can 
dwell, which rejoices me when I think that the God 
that made them all is surely a God of love. There are 
the smiling landscapes, and beautiful enamelled earth, 
and soft music of the summer's breeze, and the loud 
laugh of the bounding stream, and the innocence of 
domestic enjoyments and ennobling principles, and the 
peace and love and animation which cluster around the 
hearth-stone of many a cottage home. Oh, it is a 
delightful thought that the God who made all these 
things, is surely a God of love ! Ah, but then there are 
the sweeping floods, and the resistless tempests, and the 
mighty thunder, and the jealousies and heart-burnings 
of domestic society, and the wholesale slaughters of 
aggressive war, and the wrath of the devouring pesti- 

9 



1U 

lence, and, to crown all, death, grim and ghastly death, 
crushing the generations as the moth is crushed. "What 
am I to believe, but that the God of the universe is a 
mighty judge ? Nature can tell me nothing then. She 
just tosses my poor mind about in the most distressing 
alternations, first of confidence, and then of dread. 
And yet often when the mild voice of Christianity — 
rather of natural religion — assures me that God is love, 
I am not disposed to believe it. But then there is a 
reason for this. This is not, like the other, conjured up 
out of the land of shadows, the mere result of man's 
intellect or of speculation and theories ; it has its base 
and origin in the secrecies of his own nature. The fact 
is, in every mind there is a law of right and wrong, and 
along with it a consciousness that that law has been 
habitually violated. There is a restless apprehension 
of the law and the Law-giver, a dread foreboding of 
guilt and judgment; and a man cannot believe that 
God is love, while his conscience tells him that that 
God is to be viewed as an enemy. The comforting 
voice of reason and of religion may testify to the 
benevolence of God in heaven ; but so long as there is 
a secret misgiving within — so long as there is the yet 
unsettled controversy between his Maker and himself, 
all ideas of confidence are banished from his mind, and, 
like Adam of old, in the very slyness of his crime, he 
would hide himself from his Maker among the trees of 
his garden. 

And here it is that Christianity comes to our assist- 



195 

ance, just as she always does when we most need her, 
and one feels the force of those deep and thrilling 
words — " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
the sins of the world." This told of a Saviour, and a 
Saviour who has borne his cross and carried his sorrow, 
the man looks about him for the unwonted spectacle, 
puts off his fainting for awhile, gazes at the illustrious 
victim, and "Who is it?" he cries : "who is that mighty 
one that has come down to the rescue ? Who is it that 
has agonized in the garden, that has bled under the 
scourge, and died upon the cross ? Who is it ?" Why, 
who should it be but the very Being whom he has so 
basely and so ungratefully insulted ? and with the grace 
of love and the tenderness of the man Christ Jesus, 
there is blended the majesty of the King of kings. Oh, 
he cannot doubt after that ; that is an argument likely 
to overturn all his skepticism. He looks at the cross, 
and sees that God is righteous ; but he looks at the 
Crucified, and he sees that God is love; and, with 
clasped hands and streaming eyes and grateful heart, 
he sings, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and 
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." 

III. And then, again, God is the Christian's inherit- 
ance, also as the rest of his soul. The restlessness 
of human ambition has become proverbial. It is grasp- 
ing as the leech, insatiable as the grave. The moment 
one scheme has succeeded, it pants for the enjoyment 
of another. The moment it has scaled one eminence 
of fancied bliss, its cry is " up," ay, from the summit 



196 

of the Alps. " O that I had the wings of the dove, 
and then would I fly away and be at rest," This rest- 
less craving for something better than earth, although 
it is the companion of our fallen nature, very plainly 
tells us an important truth — that the earth and its con- 
cerns can never satisfy an immortal spirit. It pants for 
something higher, something more refined, something 
more intellectual, something more like God. That 
which alone can satisfy, can fill the immortal mind, 
must be something in which it can feel secure, and 
something with which it can be satisfied ; for to be 
secure is to be safe, and to be satisfied is to be happy. 

1. Take the first thought, then — that of security. 
We are in a dangerous world; at every step of our 
track we feel the necessity of celestial guardianship, 
and that tutelary and sustaining influences should be 
shed upon us from on high. Well, let us once get it into 
our hearts — not into our heads simply by an intellectual 
conviction, but into our hearts as a happy alliance — let 
us get it into our hearts that the Lord is our defence 
and the Holy One of Israel our refuge, and what can 
make us afraid ? Omnipotence pledged in our behalf ! 
Why, the very idea should make heroes of us all ! He 
may, he most likely will have to pass through the fur- 
nace ; the hand of affliction may be laid upon him ; the 
wind may sweep swiftly over the desert, rocking to and 
fro the canvas tents of his earthly shelter ; but you can 
hear him crying in the pauses of the storm — " It is the 
Lord ; let him do what seemeth to him good." He 



197 

may have to suffer the bitterness of bereavement ; death 
may deprive him of the beloved of his soul ; there may 
be the breaking up of the domestic homestead ; the 
fresh laceration of the already bleeding spirits, and the 
tearing asunder of hearts that have grown together ; 
but, in the midst of this unparalleled suffering, you 
can hear his unmoved faith, saying — " The Lord gave, 
and the Lord hath taken away" — not the Chaldaean, 
nor the Sabean, nor the whirlwind, nor the flood — "The 
Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the 
Lord." A fiercer flood may roll upon him, a heavier 
wave may threaten to overwhelm him, the fires of ven- 
geance may be poured on his head, but even in death's 
grasp his failing voice is heard — " Though he slay me, yet 
will I trust in him. Whom have I in heaven but thee ? 
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." 
2. And then take the next thought, that of happiness. 
The question of man's chief good has been in all ages 
speculated upon and determined. All the theorizers on 
the subject have been convinced of this — that it could 
consist in nothing inferior. And so far they are right. 
That which alone can fill the immortal mind, must have 
some analogy to the constitution of that mind ; and it 
must therefore be steadfast, proof against the litfulness 
of ever-changing circumstances ; not here to-day and 
vanished when we need it to-morrow ; not present in 
the summer time when the breezes blow, and failing in 
the winter time when the blast of the hurricane comes 
down ; but steadfast, always the same and always avail- 



198 

able. And it must be progressive, keeping pace with 
the soul, lasting as long as the soul, keeping abreast 
with it in its triumphal march to holiness and God. 
"Well, there are many candidates in the field. Just 
bring them to the test-stone for awhile. Pleasure is a 
candidate, and she brings before the soul a very glow- 
ing description of herself and her ways. She tells him 
that the voice of the siren shall make music in his ears, 
and that the loud laugh of festivity shall be heard in 
his dwelling, that the voice of song and dance and car- 
nival shall yield him succession of delight. But he 
asks, " Is she steadfast V And he hears that she never 
enters the chambers of sorrow, has no comfort for the 
dark slumber and hopeless winter of age. A bird of 
passage, she flaps her giddy wings in the sunshine, but 
at the first approach of the stormy season speeds her 
flight into more favored climes. Then honor is a can- 
didate, and she tells him of a wreath of laurels, of the 
swellings of the heart as it listens to its own praise, and 
of the untold happiness of being the conversation of the 
world. But he asks, "Is she steadfast?" And they 
tell him that chaplets of distinction often fade in a 
night; they tell him that the most fickle thing in the 
fickle universe is popular applause — how the same lips 
that shouted "Hosanna to the Son of David!"" shouted 
shortly afterward, " Crucify him ! crucify him !" and 
how the mob-idol of to-day has often been the mob- 
victim of to-morrow. Then wealth is a candidate ; and 
she tells him of the pleasure of hoarding, of the joys of 



THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. 199 

possession, of the pomp, and power, and flattery, and 
obsequiousness which money can procure. But he asks, 
" Is she steadfast ?" He hears that she brings with her 
her own discontent ; that the cares of keeping are worse 
than the cares of getting ; that often in times of panic, 
like the scared eagle, wealth takes to itself wings and 
flies away ; and even if a man enjoy it all his life long, 
though failure and panic may not come to strip the lord 
of his property, death shall come and strip the property 
of its lord. 

"Well, then, after all these, the joys of earth, have been 
tried and severally found wanting, God brings his 
claims before the mind, offering to be the soul's refuge 
and everlasting home. True itself, it does not shrink 
from the test. God's aids are steadfast, they avail in 
the winter as well as in the summer ; in the dark season 
of adversity as well as when the sun shineth on the 
path ; when frost depresses the spirit as well as when 
sunshine fills it with laughter ; when friends troop up 
and when friends forsake equally ; when fortune smiles 
and when the world turns the cold shoulder. Are they 
always the same % Are they not ? Oh ! if the deco- 
rums of the sanctuary would permit it to-night, are 
there not many of you who could rise up in your deep 
baptism of sorrow and sing in the words of the poet?- — 

" When our sorrows most increase, 
Then his richest joys are given; 
Jesus comes in our distress, 
And agony is heaven." 



200 

Are they progressive ? Will they last as long as the 
soul ? Will they keep young as it does, and keep pace 
with it as it travels along toward holiness and God? 
Oh, yes ! for before all the immense and varied lands- 
cape of blessings upon which the eye can rest, existed 
the fullness of Deity; beyond it, stretching forth, a 
broad, fathomless infinity — 

" An ocean of love and of power, 
Which neither knows measure nor end." 

3. Passing over several topics that might be worthy 
of our meditation, just let us glance for a moment at 
the support offered to the Christian in the hour and 
article of death. Come with me, then, will you ? it will 
do you good. Come with me to the Christian's death- 
bed ; and if there is a cold-hearted and skeptical infidel 
of your acquaintance, bring him with you, that he may 
learn at once the worthlessness of human pride and the 
glory of the God of love. Stretched upon a couch 
lies the poor sufferer — 

" Whose weak, attenuated frame 
Shows naught of being but a name." 

Is this the man — is this the being who but a little while 
ago towered in all the strength of his pride ? Is this 
clenched hand that which clasped yours in friendship 
but a little while ago ? Ah, how true it is that he 
cometh forth as a flower and is cut down ! But what 
is it fills that closing eye with such unwonted bright- 
ness ? What is it that kindles that pallid cheek into 



201 

such angelic animation ? All ! thero is a mightier than 
you, and a mightier than death ; there is God in that 
death-chamber. There is an awe and a solemnity 
which tells of the presence of God. Listen ! listen to 
the unfaltering firmness with which that voice sings : 
"My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength 
of my heart and my portion forever." Is that enthu- 
siasm ? Are these the accents of frenzy ? Does mad- 
ness talk so calmly ? Has the prospect of dissolution 
no chilling influence ? Can a fictitious excitement sup- 
port the soul at such an hour ? Ah ! that is a stout- 
hearted hypocrisy that can brave the agony of dying. 
But here is triumph in death. Stoicism boasts of her 
examples ; patriotism has a long list of worthies, for 
whom the world has woven garlands of undying bloom. 
But here is a man, a poor, frail, erring, insignificant 
man, going with his eyes open, with the full conscious- 
ness of his position, down the dark valley, to meet, to 
grapple with, and to master his last enemy. There is a 
spectacle of the morally sublime that I challenge the 
wide universe to equal. And this sublime spectacle is 
not of the wisdom of men ; it is just the power of God. 
But while we have been talking about him, the man 
has died ; the last convulsion is past ; the last breath is 
drawn ; the last pulse has completed its feeble throb — 

" Oh change, oh wondrous change ! 
There lies the soulless clod : 
The sun eternal breaks ; the new immortal wakes — 
Wakes with his God." 

9* 



202 THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. 

There is high festivity in the realms of the blest at the 
accession of another member to the rejoicing family. 
And the harpers harping with their harps rest in their 
music awhile, and the angels, who pry forever into the 
mysteries of God, take holiday from their researches for 
awhile, and all heaven is gathered to witness the coro- 
nation of the rejoicing believer as the crown is placed 
on his head by the Master for whom he has done and 
suffered so much. Ah ! what strange act is that ? He 
takes the crown and casts it again at the feet of the 
giver, and he says, assigning his reason — listen, we shall 
hear, for the music is still just now — what is it? " Ah, 
Lord, the harp, and the robe, and the crown, and the 
palm, what are all these to me ? These are : only the 
appendages of the recompense. Thou art my reward ; 
thou art my portion ; whom have I in heaven itself but 
thee?" And then the harpers harping with their harps 
break out again, they can hold in no longer, and heaven 
is filled as with an irrepressible gush of melody, " Kot 
unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the 
glory." And that is the end. Who does not say, "Let 
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
be like his ?" Ah, but there are many people that pray 
that prayer, who would like to die the death of the 
righteous, but who do not like to live the life of the 
righteous. But they go together ; believe me they go 
together. If you would die the death of the righteous, 
you must live the life of the righteous, even a life of 
faith in the Son of God, " who hath loved you and 



203 

given himself for you." There are some in this 
assembly to-night, who are not living the life of the 
righteous ; you have not given yourselves unto Christ 
and his people, and there is no hope of that death for 
you. 

There is another death which I dare not trust myself 
to describe — scenes of agony over which I draw the 
veil — the very thought of which freezes the vitals and 
curdles the blood ! Oh ! come to Jesus ; do not tempt 
upon yourselves any such doom as that. Get Christ for 
you all. "I live," as says the rejoicing Apostle; "yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me " — so shall everything 
lead you up to God. It could not lead you to undervalue 
the life you now live ; it would not make you love less 
this beautiful world ; everything around you will only 
have mystic meanings which will be interpreted only 
by Christ ; you will be led thus from nature up to 
nature's God. Then, as you pass through scenes of 
beauty and blessedness, your full heart, taking refuge 
in the language of poesy, will sing— - 

"Lord of earth, thy forming hand 
Well this beauteous frame hath planned : 
Woods that wave, and hills that tower, 
Ocean rolling in its power ; 
All that strikes the gaze unsought, 
All that charms the lonely thought. 
Yet, amid this scene so fair, 
Oh ! if thou wert absent there, 
What were all those joys to me ; 
Whom have I on earth but thee ?" 



204 THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. 

Then, travelling through the path of your pilgrimage, 
God, your own God, will bless you, and will wipe away 
all tears from your faces, and will uplift you in the 
endurance and prepare you for the duties of life ; and 
your pilgrimage will go on calmly ; mellow eventide 
will come upon you, yet at eventide there shall be 
light. The last stroke will be struck, the last enemy 
encountered, the last change realized, and amid the 
ranks of the ransomed you pass to pay your first hom- 
age to the throne, and even then, taking refuge again 
in the language of poesy, will your thoughts be the 
same — 

" Lord of heaven, beyond our sight 
Rolls a world of purer light ; 
Where, in love's unclouded reign, 
Parted hands are clasped again ; 
Martyr's there and seraphs high, 
Blest and glorious company ! 
While immortal music rings 
From unnumbered seraph strings. 
Oh, that scene is passing fair ! 
Yet if thou wert absent there, 
What were all those joys to me ? 
Whom have I in heaven but thee ?" 

May God bring us all to sing that song forever, for 
his name's sake. 



VIII. 

THE HEAVENLY CONQUEKOK. 

" And I saw, and behold a white horse ; and he that sat on him had 
bow ; and a crown was given unto him ; and he went forth conquering and 
to conquer" — Rev. vi., 2. 

How animating is the sound of war ! How easily can 
it awaken the ardors of the unrenewed and unsanctified 
heart of man ! There is no profession in which he can 
gain more renown and applause than in the profession 
of arms. It is the birthplace of what men call glory. 
Custom has baptized it honorable ; it carries with it a 
pomp and a circumstance of which other professions 
are destitute ; it has nerved the arm of the patriot, it 
has fired the genius of the painter, it has strung and 
swept the poet's lyre ; nations have bowed before its 
shrine, and even religion has prostituted herself to bless 
and consecrate its banners. Yet it must not be for- 
gotten that for the most part human conquerors are just 
murderers upon a grand scale — mighty butchers of 
human kind. Their victories are won amid extermina- 
tion and havoc ; their track is traced in ruin ; there is 
human life upon their laurels ; and if they wish to 
acquire a name, they have got one ; let them glory as 

20J» 



206 THE HEAVENLY CONQUEKOR. 

they can in its possession — the voice of blood proclaims 
it from the ground, and it is vaunted from earth to 
heaven by the waitings of orphaned hearts, and by the 
deep execrations of despair. The sacred writings, how- 
ever, tell us of one conqueror whose victories were 
peacefully achieved, whose battles were bloodlessly won ; 
or if his onward march was discolored by blood, it was 
his own. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who is thus 
evidently set before us ; he who " died the just for the 
unjust, that he might bring us to God." In the fulfill- 
ment of the various duties connected with the mediato- 
rial office which he had undertaken, he is frequently 
represented as going out to battle against his adver- 
saries, as routing them by the word of his mouth, and 
returning in exultation and triumph. Instances of this 
you will easily and at once remember. Thus, in the 
forty-fifth Psalm : " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O 
most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in 
thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and 
meekness and righteousness ; and thy right hand shall 
teach thee terrible things." Again, in the eleventh 
chapter of Luke : " When a strong man armed keepeth 
his palace, his goods are in peace : but when a stronger 
than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he 
taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and 
divideth his spoils." And yet, again, according to the 
mysterious apocalypses of the Book of Revelation, 
"Then shall all make war with the Lamb, and the 
Lamb shall overcome them." It matters not how 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 207 

numerous or how powerful his enemies may be — alike 
over the powers of darkness with their legioned hosts 
of foes — alike over the corruption of the human heart 
with all its ramifications of depravity — alike over the 
false systems into which the corruption has retreated, 
as into so many garrisoned and fortified towns, " a 
crown is given unto him, and he goeth forth conquering 
and to conquer." It is not my intention to enter into 
all the details of this interesting and absorbing strife. 
I should just like to concentrate your attention upon 
one phase of the conflict — the battle of the old serpent 
the devil, the great origin of evil, under whose general- 
ship the others are mustered, and to whose commands 
they submittingly bow. Behold, then, the combat be- 
yond all others important — the combat between Christ 
and Satan for the human soul, and, as you trace the 
progress of the fight, remember with encouragement, 
and say that " He goeth forth conquering and to 
conquer." It will be necessary, in order that we have 
the whole matter before us, that we introduced the 
cause of strife, the battle, and the victory. 

I. As to the cause of strife. You know that when 
the all-comprising benevolence of God found heaven 
too small for the completion of his vast designs, this 
earth arose in order and in beauty from his forming 
hands. After by his Spirit he had garnished the 
heavens, and scattered upon the fair face of nature the 
labor of his hand and the impress of his feet, as the 
fairest evidence of Divine workmanship, the last and 



208 THE HEAVENLY " CONQUEROR. 

most excellent of his works below, he made man in his 
own image, after his own likeness. The soul, then, was 
the property of him by whom it was created, who 
imparted to it its high and noble faculties, by whom, 
notwithstanding its defilement, it is still sustained, and 
from whom proceed the retributions which shall fix its 
doom forever. Man was created in possession of that 
moral purity, that absolute freedom from sin, which 
constituted of itself assimilation to his Maker's image. 
And so long as he retained that image, so long was he 
the Divine property, and the Divine portion alone. 
But the moment he sinned, the moment of the perver- 
sion of his nature, of the estrangement of his faculties, 
of the alienation of his heart, he came under a different 
tenure, and became a vassal of a different lord. 

Satan himself, once an inhabitant of the high realms 
of glory, but hurled from that giddy height for diso- 
bedience and pride, was mysteriously permitted to 
tempt our first parents in the garden, with the full 
knowledge, on their part, that, standing as they did in 
their representative, and public character, if they fell 
the consequences of that one transgression were en- 
tailed upon all their posterity. With the circumstances 
of the original temptation you are of course familiar, 
and the issue of it you have in that one verse in the 
book of Genesis : " Because thou hast done this, thou 
art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of 
the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt 
thou eat all the days of thy life." This tells us of the 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 209 

contravention — the direct contravention — of a known 
law : a law which God, as the supreme Creator, had a 
perfect right to institute ; a law which man, as a 
dependent creature, was under binding obligations to 
obey. It was instituted avowedly as a test of obe- 
dience ; and this is all we would answer to the labored 
sarcasms of foolish infidelity. Any wayfaring man, 
though a fool, can curl his lip and declaim against the 
insignificance of the act from which such mighty issues 
sprang ; but he forgets that the moment the tempta- 
tion was yieled to, there was in human nature a very 
incarnation of the devil. Under that demoniacal pos- 
session the man was prepared for any infraction, from 
the eating of the forbidden fruit to the subversion of an 
almighty throne ; and lie who, under such circum- 
stances, would violate a known command, however 
trifling, would not, if the circumstances had been 
equal, have shrunk away from the endeavor to scale 
the battlements of heaven, and pluck the crown of 
divinity from the very brow of the Eternal. Hence it 
was, by yielding to the suggestions of the tempter, and 
to his infamous temptation, that the portals of the 
palace were flung wide open for the strong man armed 
to enter ; and hither, alas ! he came with all his sad and 
fearful train, enthroning himself upon the heart, setting 
up his image, as Bunyan hath it, in the market-place 
of the town of Man-soul ; fortifying every avenue, filling 
every chamber, corrupting every faculty, enervating 
every inhabitant, and announcing every moment the 



210 THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

symbols of his own resolve to grasp and hold it forever. 
Here then is in brief the cause of this celestial strife. 
The soul, a colony of heaven, had been taken usurped 
possession of, by the powers of hell, and the effort to 
restore it to allegiance was the main cause of this 
celestial war. 

Still further to impress you with the weighty causes 
of the strife, let us remind you for a moment of the 
character of the government thus by daring usurpation 
acquired. The dominion which Satan exercises over 
the human soul is despotic in its character. He is not a 
monarch, he is an autocrat ; he admits no compromise, 
he brooks no rival, he pours his uncleanness upon every 
part, and reigns supremely over every power and every 
faculty of man. True, the man is not always conscious 
of his slavery ; that is one of the cunningest secrets of 
his power, that he persuades his vassals that they are 
free, and their offended language to any one who 
questions the fact is, " We be Abraham's children that 
were never in bondage to any man." He brands them 
as is own, and then, content to wear his badge, they 
may choose their own trappings. He has no uniform. 
Some of his soldiers are in rags and others in purple, 
and his very choicest veterans have stolen the livery of 
heaven. There is not one within the compass of the 
whole human family who is not subject to his authority, 
naturally led captive by the devil at his will. And 
then, this government of Satan over the human soul is 
not only despotic but degrading. Slavery in any form 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 211 

is essentially connected with degradation, and in the 
case before us the connection must be regarded as the 
most palpable and emphatic of all. The essence and 
exaltation of moral dignity are assimilations to the 
image of God. Whatever recedes from that image 
must of necessity debase and degrade. Now the course 
of man's life, as it has been, ever since the fall, a 
course of constant and increasing recession from God, 
presents a spectacle of moral degradation which is 
grievous to behold : the whole nature has fallen ; the 
understanding has become darkened, and is conversant 
only with what is contemptible and low ; the affections, 
which once soared sublimely upward, now cleave to 
worldly objects, objects that perish in the using ; the 
passions have become loyal servants of the usurper, and 
keep their zealous patrol in the court-yard of his 
palace ; the will, which once inclined to good, is now 
fierce and greedy after evil ; imagination revels in 
fondest dalliance with sin for its paramour ; and con- 
science, intoxicated with opiate draughts, and in that 
intoxication smitten with paralysis, gazes hopelessly 
upon the desolation ; or if at times stirred by the spirit 
within, it breaks out with a paroxysm and terrifies the 
man with its thunder, he is persuaded to regard it as 
the incoherence of some meddling drunkard, or the 
ravings of some frantic madman. Such is the condi- 
tion to which the usurpation of the evil one has 
reduced the human soul. It is first earthly, scraping 
its affluence or its pleasure together ; and then, yet 



212 THE HEAVENLY -CONQUEROR. 

more degrading, there is the transformation that hap- 
pened to Nebuchadnezzar, the heart of a man is taken 
out, and the heart of a beast is put in ; and then, as 
like grows to like, and as a process of assimilation is 
constantly going on, it grows into its master's image ; 
the mark of the beast becomes more distinct and pal- 
pable, every feature stands confessed of Satan's obscene 
and loathsome likeness, and there is a living proof of 
the truth of the scale upon which Scripture has 
graduated man's increasing degeneracy. First earthly, 
then sensual, then devilish. This is a fearful picture ; 
is it not \ Ah ! you see the man, or his bacchanalian 
orgies, or his midnight prowl, but you do not see the 
fiend that dogs his steps and goads him to destruction. 
You see the degradation of the nature that once bore 
the image of God, but you do not see the jibing, 
mocking demon that is behind. You trace intelligibly 
enough the infernal brand, but you cannot hear the 
peals of infernal laughter as the arch-devil, looking 
down upon the soul that he has stormed, exults in the 
extremity of the disgrace and glories in the pollution 
of the fallen. 

The government of Satan over the human soul is not 
only despotic and degrading, but destructive. Sin and 
punishment are inseparably allied ; the powers of dark- 
ness, although mysteriously permitted a certain amount 
of influence, are themselves, in punishment, " reserved 
in chains under darkness until the judgment of the 
great day." A man who transgresses, since no coer- 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROK. 213 

cion comes upon the freedom of his will, must neces- 
sarily be regarded as willful ; he is under the" curses of a 
violated law, nay, condemned altogether, for " the 
wrath of God abideth upon him." God will " pour out 
indignation, and wrath, and tribulation, and anguish 
upon every soul of man that doeth evil ; upon the Jew 
first, and also upon the Gentile ;" for there is no re- 
spect of persons with God. I am speaking to uncon- 
verted sinners to-night ; to some of refined and delicate 
sensibility, shocked at the ribaldry of the vulgar, and 
at the licentiousness of the profane. I tell you there 
is no respect of persons with God. If you flee not to a 
high and mighty Redeemer, if you repose not in 
present reliance upon Christ, for you there remaineth 
nothing but a death whese bitterest ingredient is that it 
can never die, but that it has eternity about it, eternity 
beyond it, and eternity within it, and the curse of God, 
upon it, fretting it and following it forever. 

Thank God, there is a promise of a perfect and de- 
lightful deliverance from this thralldom under which 
man has been groaning. Christ has come down on 
purpose to deliver and ransom him, and he goeth forth 
conquering and to conquer. In the counsels of the 
eternal Godhead, in foresight of the temptation of 
Satan and of the thralldom and depravity of man, 
Christ was induced to work out a counteracting scheme, 
by which, in the beautiful language of ancient pro- 
phecy, the prey of the mighty should be taken away 
and the lawful captive delivered. The first initimatiou 



214: THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

of this scheme was given just when the first shadow of 
sin swept over the world. " The seed of the woman 
shall bruise the serpent's head." From that time there 
was a continued series of operations, in the good provi- 
dence of God perpetuated for thousands of years, all 
tending to the fulfillment of this original promise, and 
the achievement of this original plan. At last, in the 
fullness of time — the time by prophet seers foretold, 
and by believing saints expected — in the fullness of time, 
the Son of God was incarnated in the nature that had 
sinned, and then it was that the battle in earnest began. 
IT. Look, then, at the Divine Saviour, " stronger 
than the strong man armed," invested with far higher 
qualifications, and wielding far mightier power. And 
how is this? He is the babe in Bethlehem, the 
rejected wanderer, the arraigned rebel, the scourged 
and spit upon, the Nazarene, the crucified. But these 
are only voluntary submissions, and in the deepest humi- 
liation there slumbers Omnipotence within. " All power 
is given unto Me both in heaven and in earth," and this 
power is all enlisted upon the side of salvation and of 
mercy. It is not the power of the lightning, that 
blasts while it brightens ; it is not the power of the 
whirlwind, whose track is only known by the carnage 
and desolation that it leaves behind it. It is the power 
of the water rill, that drops and drops, and in its drop- 
ping melts the most stern and difficult of nature's 
forces. It is the power of the light ; it flows in ener- 
getic silence, you cannot hear it as it flows, and yet it 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 215 

permeates and illumines all. He is strong, but he is 
strong to deliver ; he is mighty, bnt, in is own powerful 
language, he is " mighty to save." It often happens — 
it used to do so more frequently than it does now — in 
the history of the strifes of nations, and of the harsh 
scenes of war, that the interest of spectators was drawn 
aside from hostile ranks to two courageous champions, 
who separated themselves from opposing armies for 
single combat with each other, and the fate of armies 
appeared to the spectators as nothing compared with 
who should be the victor in this individual strife. O ! 
conceive, if it were possible, a single combat between 
the rival princes of light and darkness, the grand, the 
transcendent, the immeasurable issue of which shall be 
the ruin or redemption of the human soul ! I cannot 
limn it ; I cannot bring it fairly before you ; the sub- 
ject is too mighty : and yet a thought or two may not 
inaptly illustrate the battle that is now before us. 

See, then, the lists are spread ; the champions are 
there. Eager angels crowd around, for they have an 
interest in the strife, and they are anxious to tune their 
harps to the anthems of regeneration again. Exulting 
demons are there, flushed with high hopes they dare 
not name, that vaunt of a ruined universe and of a 
peopled hell. This is no gentle passage at arms ; this is 
no gorgeous tournament, or mimic fight, or holiday 
review ; the destinies of a world of souls are trembling 
in the balance now — depend for weal or woe upon the 
issue of this mortal strife. 



216 THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

The first grapple seems to have been in the tempta- 
tion in the wilderness ; for at the commencement of our 
Saviour's public ministry the enemy endeavored to 
tempt the second Adam after the same fashion as he 
had tempted the first ; and when wearied with labor, 
and exhausted with endurance and suffering from the 
pangs of hunger and of thirst, he brought before him a 
similar order of temptation to that which had been 
successful in the garden of Eden. Ah ! but there was a 
mightier Adam in human flesh this time with whom he 
had to deal. Grasping the sword of the spirit, with its 
trenchant blade, he cut asunder the flimsy sophistries 
of the tempter's weaving, and the discomfited demon 
went baffled away ; and angels came and ministered 
unto Jesus — fanned with their ambrosial wings his 
burning brow, and poured their offices of kindness 
upon his fatigued and sorrowing soul. 

Defeated, but not conquered, the enemy returned to 
the charge ; and the next grapple was in the perform- 
ance of miracles. It is customary in ordinary warfare, 
you know, whenever a fortress- is taken, for the con- 
queror to garrison it with some of his own soldiers, and 
leave some trusty captain in charge. The enemy 
appears to have acted upon this plan, and in token of 
his usurped authority over the human race, he caused 
certain of his servants to enter into the bodies of men. 
"When Christ came into the world they brought unto 
him those that were grievously vexed with devils. He 
sat down before some of their Sebastopols of the evil 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 217 

one, and as speaking by that high exorcism, he at once 
dislodged the intruders ; and as, some in moody silence, 
and others with piteous cries, they rushed out from the 
places they had agonized, we can trace in their com- 
plaining the confession of their defeat : " What have 
we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God. Art thou 
come to torment us before the time ?" 

The next was the death grapple. And was the cham- 
pion smitten? Did he bencl beneath that felon's 
stroke ? "Was there victory at last for the powers of 
hell ? Imagine, if you can, how there would be joy is 
the breast of the evil one when the Saviour expired ; 
how he would exult at that victory which had more 
than recompensed the struggle of four thousand years. 
Hours roll on ; he makes no sign ; day and night suc- 
ceed each other ; there is no break upon the slumber — 
their victory appears complete and final. Shall no one 
undeceive them ? No ; let them enjoy their triumph 
as they may. It were cruel to disturb a dream like 
that, which will have so terrible an awaking. But we, 
brethren, with the light of eighteen hundred years 
streaming down upon that gory field, understand the 
matter better. He died, of course, for only thus could 
death be abolished ; he was counted with transgressors, 
of course, for thus only could sin be forgiven ; he was 
made a curse for us, of course, because thus ouly could 
he turn the curse into a blessing. O ! to faith's en- 
lightened sight there is a surpassing glory upon that 
cross. He was never so kingly as when girt about with 

10 



218 THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

that crown of thorns ; there was never so much royalty 
upon that regal brow as when he said, " It is finished," 
and he died. 

There only remains one more grapple, and that was in 
the rising from the dead and ascension into heaven. It is 
considered the principal glory of a conqueror, you know, 
not merely that he repels the aggressive attacks of his 
enemy, but when he carries the war into that enemy's camp 
and makes him own himself vanquished in the metropolis 
of his own empire. This Christ did by concealing himself 
for a while within the chambers of the grave. "We cannot 
tell you much about the battle, for it was a night attack, 
it took place in darkness ; but we can tell the issue, because 
on the morning of the third day the sepulchre was empty, 
and the Redeemer had gone forth into Galilee. This 
was only like the garnering up of the fruits of the 
conflict. The cross had settled it. It was finished 
when he said it was, upon the cross ; but this was a 
sudden surprise in the camp, when the guards were 
drawn off, and the soldiers carousing in the flush of 
fancied victory. By death he had abolished death — 
him that had the power of death. By his resurrection 
he spoiled principalities and powers ; and then he went 
up that he might " make a show of them openly." 
You can almost follow him as he goes, and the chal- 
lenge is given as he rises and nears the gates of the 
celestial city : " Who is this that cometh from Edom 
with dyed garments from Bozra ? this that is glorious 
in his apparel travelling in the greatness of hia 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 219 

strength ?" And then comes the answer : " I that speak 
in righteousness, might y to save." " Lift np your 
heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lifted up ye everlasting 
doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is 
this King of glory \ The Lord strong and mighty, the 
Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye 
gates ; even lift them up ye everlasting doors ; and the 
King of glory shall come in." 

" And through the portals wide outspread 
The vast proeession pours.'" 

And on he marches through the shining ranks of the 
ransomed, until he gets to the throne and points to the 
captives of his bow and spear, and claims his recom- 
pense. And " there is silence in heaven ;" and there is 
given unto him " a name that is above every name ; 
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and 
every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of 
God the father." It is finished. Now he rests from his 
labors, and now he sheathes his sword, and now he 
wears his crown. 

III. Just a word or two upon the victory that he 
gained. It was complete, it was benevolent, it was 
unchanging. 

The attack which the Saviour made upon the enemy 
was such as to tear away the very sources and energies 
of his power. Mark how each fresh onset, whether 
from earth or hell, has only enhanced his glory and 
brightened the conqueror's crown. He vanquished in 



220 THE HEAVENLY -CONQUEROR. 

his own person by dying, and in the person of his fol- 
lowers he has continued to manifest that indestructible 
energy which was always manifest just when it seemed 
to be overthrown. Why, at the commencement of 
Christianity would not any one have thought that a 
breath would annihilate it and exterminate the name 
of its founder forever ? And there they were — 
Caesar on the throne, Herod on the bench, Pilate in the 
judgment-hall, Caiaphas in the temple, priests and 
soldiers, Jews and Romans, all united together to crush 
the Galilean, and the Galilean, overcame. And so it 
has been in all ages until now. Presecution has lifted 
up her head against the truth ; war-wolves have lapped 
up the blood of God's saints, and for a time silenced the 
witness of confessors, and the testimony of the faithful 
has gone upward amid the crackling of fagots, and 
the ascending flame has been the chariot of fire in 
which rising Elijahs have mounted to heaven. And 
not merely is the completeness of this triumph mani- 
fested in the aggregate, but in the individual. Not 
only is every man brought into a salvable state, but 
every part of every man is redeemed. The poor body 
is not forgotten : it is taught to cast off the grave 
clothes and anticipate an everlasting residence in 
heaven. The mind crouches no longer ; it emancipates 
itself from its vassalage and stands erect in the liberty 
wherewith Christ made it free. And the whole man, 
who was a while ago an alien, degraded and desolate, a 
fitting companion of the beast in his lair, a worthy fol- 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 221 

lower in the serpent's trail, is now " clothed and in his 
right mind," careering along in the enterprises of godli- 
ness, a fellow-citizen with saints and the household of God. 
And then the triumphs of the Saviour are benevolent 
too. Tell me not of human glory, it is a prostituted 
word. Tell me not of Agincourt, and Cressy, and 
"Waterloo, and of the high places of Moloch worship, 
where men have been alike both priests and victims. 
One verse of the poet aptly describes them all : 

" Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay. 
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife ; 
The morning marshalling in arms ; the day 
Battle's magnificently stern array, 
The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent, 

The earth is covered quick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 
Rider and horse, friend and foe, in one rude burial blent ." 

But what is it to be seen in the time of the Lord's 
victory ? Plains covered with traces of recent carnage, 
and of recent havoc ? "What is there to be heard in the 
time of the Lord's victory ? Orphans wailing the dead, 
widows bemoaning those that have departed ? ISTo, but 
a voice breathing down a comfortable word to men : 
" They shall neither hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain, saith the Lord." The procession of this 
conqueror consists of saved souls, and eternity shall 
consecrate the scene. 

And then the triumphs of the Saviour are not only 



222 THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

complete and benevolent, but unchanging. The things 
that are now are very transitory. The sand of the 
desert is not more unstable ; the chaff of the summer 
threshing-floor is not more helpless on the wind ; but 
the Saviour's triumphs brighten with the lapse of time; 
their lustre time can tarnish not, nor death itself 
destroy. O ! think of the multitude that have been 
already saved ! think of the multitude who went up in 
the early ages of the Church with its enrichments of 
blessings ; think of those who had been taken off to 
heaven before they ever had time to sin after the simili- 
tude of Adam's transgression — souls ransomed by the 
blood of atonement taken from birth under the wing of 
the quivering cherub right away into the realms of 
blessedness and rest ; think of those from the time of 
the Saviour's incarnation until now who have passed 
through death triumphant home ; think of the multi- 
tudes now upon earth that are working out their salva- 
tion with fear and trembling ; think of the still greater 
multitudes that shall yet press into the Church in the 
times of its millennial glory, when the gates of it shall 
not be shut day or night, because there shall be no 
chance of shutting them, the people crowd in so fast. 
O what a Jubilee in heaven ! gathering of emanci- 
pated spirits ! Limit the / extent of the atonement ! 
"Who dares do it ? Talk about Christ dying for a few 
scattered families of the sons of men merely ! "Why, it 
is to charge my Saviour with cowardice, and bring a 
slur upon his conduct in the Held. If there be ouo 



THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 223 

solitary soul the wide universe through for whom 
Christ did not die, over that soul death has triumphed, 
and the conquest of my Saviour is imperfect and 
incomplete. O ! he seems to stand in his triumphal 
chariot, in the very centre of the universe, with 
exulting heaven before and with tormented hell be- 
hind ; and there is not an unconquered rebel there but 
the glad halleluiahs of the one, and the solemn acqui- 
escences of the other, peal out the universe's anthem, 
" He is Lord of all." 

And now which side are you ? Pardon the abrupt- 
ness of the question, but answer it to your consciences 
and to your God notwithstanding. Which side are 
you ? There is no neutrality in this war, or if there be 
one here that intends to preserve a dastardly neutrality, 
he will get the hottest of the battle, and be exposed to 
the cross-fire of both sides. Which side are you ? Do 
you belong to the Lord, or the Lord's enemies ? Ask 
yourselves that question in the sight of God. I never 
knew, until I looked upon it in this aspect, the force 
and power of a certain question which the Saviour 
presented in the days of his flesh. I have admired the 
capacities of the human soul, that it has a memory that 
can recall the past, imagination that can penetrate the 
future : that it has a will that no man can tame, that it 
has immortality as its heritage. But I see all heaven 
in earnest there, and all hell in earnest yonder, and the 
prize of the conflict is one poor human soul ; and then 
I see, as I never saw before, what an intensity of 



224: THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 

emphasis there is in the awful inquiry : " What shall it 
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose 
his own soul ?" Brethren, how shall it be with yon ? 
" Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is 
the enemy of God ;" and the doom of the enemies of 
God is brought before us in the Bible : " Bring hither 
those mine enemies that would not I should reign over 
them, and slay them before me." On which side are 
you ? There is one passage that I should just like to 
bring before you, which has always appeared to me to 
be one of the most fearful in the whole compass of the 
book of God : " When the unclean spirit is gone out of 
a man" — mark it, it does not say when he is driven 
out, it does not say when he is dispossessed by superior 
powers ; but the awful idea, almost too awful to be 
entertained, is that there are some people in this world 
of ours of whom Satan is so sure that he can leave 
them for a while, perfectly certain that they will sweep 
and garnish his house in his absence, and prepare it for 
seven other spirits more inveterate and cruel — " When 
the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh 
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 
Then he saith, I will return unto my house." O 
mockery of that quiet empire ! " To my house." The 
tenancy has not changed ; he knows full well there is 
too much love of the master's service in the heart of 
the man for that. " I will return into my house from 
whence I came out ; and when he is come he findeth it 
empty, swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and 






THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR. 225 

taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked 
than himself, and they enter in and dwell . there ; and 
the last state of that man is worse than the first." Oh 
horrible ! horrible ! Not merely to have Satan as a 
guest, but to sweep and garnish the house that he may 
come in, and that he may bring with him seven other 
spirits more wicked than himself. And are you doing 
that ? Is there one in the presence of God to-night to 
whom this awful passage will apply ? Oh, I thank God 
I can preach to you a present salvation in the name 
Jesus. Be delivered from that bondage of yours, for 
Christ has come down on purpose that he may deliver, 
and that he may rescue, and he goeth forth conquering 
and to conquer. " Ask, and it shall be given you ; 
seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened 
unto you." There is salvation for you from the power 
of death, and from the thralldom and ascendency of 
besetting sin, and from the grasp of the destroyer. 
There is salvation for you in Christ Jesus the Lord. 
Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost of human 
guilt, to the uttermost of human life, to the uttermost 
of human time. May God help you, for Christ's sake. 



10* 



IX. 



THE CHRISTIANS DEATH, LIFE, PEOSPECTS, 
AND DUTY. 

" Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For 
ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who 
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." — 
Collossians iii. 2, 3, 4. 

In the former part of this delightful and valuable 
epistle, the Apostle has been reminding the Colossians 
of their privileges, and the covenant blessings which 
they inherited in Christ. He tells them that they have 
entered upon a new dispensation, that the system of 
types and shadows has accomplished its purpose, and 
has been fulfilled, that their circumcision was of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, and that they 
were " complete in Christ, who is the head of all prin- 
cipality and power." Lest, however, by these con- 
siderations, any of them should be exalted above 
measure, he urges them that they live unto God, tells 
them that, although freed from the yoke of ceremonial 
observance, their obligation to obey was as strict and as 
binding as ever, and though no longer impelled by 
slavish and spiritless fear, the love of Christ should con 

227 



228 TOE christian's death, 

strain them to a closer evangelical obedience. There is 
no antinomianism, brethren, in the Gospel ; it tells us 
that faith without works is dead ; that however largely 
it may talk about its knowledge of the better land, 
however it may imagine itself to be exalted through the 
abundance of its revelations, if it do not work by love 
and purity of heart, if it do not exert a transforming 
influence upon the character and life, there is no sound- 
ness in it, and it is but a specious and delusive mim- 
ickry of the faith which saves. The Apostle, in impress- 
ing this fact upon their minds, takes hallowed ground ; 
he seems to remind them of their privileges, that he 
may the more effectually insist upon their duty ; and 
for the grandeur of their blessings, he urges their entire 
consecration to God. "If ye then be risen with Christ," 
if ye be merged from the obscurity of the old dispen- 
sation unto the strength and beauty of the new, if ye 
have power over sin, if, by virtue of communion with 
your Saviour, ye are justified by faith, sanctified by the 
Spirit, and travelling to heaven, "seek those things that 
are above ;" be at home in heaven ; let your desires 
cluster there, and let there be a gathering of your hopes 
around the throne ; let your affections fasten upon that 
radiant seat " where Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
God." He then repeats the exhortation, and assigns 
reasons for its performance, in the language of the text, 
" Set your affections on things above, not on things on 
the earth. For ye are dead, and y our life is hid with 
Christ in God. "When Christ, who is our life, shall 



229 

appear, then shall ye also appear with him in 
glory." 

There are fonr things presented to us in these words : 
the Christian's death, the Christian's life, the Christian's 
prospects, and the Christian's duty ; an ineffable blend- 
ing of precept and promise, upon which, for a few 
moments, it may profit us to dwell. 

I. The first thing that strikes us, is the Christian's 
death. " For," says the Apostle, " ye are dead." Is 
not this somewhat of a paradox ? Does not Christ say 
expressly, that he came not to destroy men's liyes, but 
to save them ? Was it not one of the purposes of his 
coming, that we might have life, and that we might 
have it more abundantly? Was it not one of the 
designs of his incarnation, that from the fountain of his 
own underived existence, he might replenish the veins 
of man, even to life everlasting ? And yet, when we 
enter upon his service, the very first thing we are told 
to do is to die. Who shall solve the enigma \ Only 
the Scripture, by becoming, as it always does, the 
authorized and satisfactory interpreter of itself. In St. 
Paul's Epistle to Timothy, you find this remarkable ex- 
pression : " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while 
she liveth." You have no difficulty in understanding 
that to mean dead in spiritual things. In that pleasure- 
loving heart there beats no pulse for God ; in that 
spirit, around which the world has flung the spells of 
its witchery, there is no desire for heaven ; the 
pleasures of sense engross it, and, although compassed 



230 the christian's death, 

by the realities of the other world, its very existence is 
treated as a question or a fable. JS~ow, just the reverse 
of this, morally considered, will explain to us the state 
of the Christian when the Apostle tells us he is dead. 
The fact is, that between the flesh and the spirit, there 
is a bitter and irreconcilable enmity; the one cannot 
exist in the presence and by the side of the other. 
That which has been garnished for the temple of the 
Lord, must not be profaned by an idol. Distinct and 
solemn, and authoritative is the inspired announcement, 
" "Whosoever will be the friend of the world is the 
enemy of God." Impiety has entered into an unholy 
compact to amalgamate these two, to adjust their 
claims, to give them a division of service ; but it is a 
covenant with death — it shall be disannulled ; it is an 
agreement with hell — it shall not stand. Religion 
peals out her refusal of such reluctant allegiance, lays 
the grasp of her claim upon the entire nation, and tells 
us in tones of power, " Ye can not serve God and mam- 
mon." The Christian, then, who is a Christian indeed, 
regards the world as if it were not, and continually 
endeavors to exemplify that his life and conversation 
are in heaven. His differences from the world may not, 
indeed, be apparent to a superficial observer ; he goes 
to and fro among the people like other men ; he takes 
an interest in the ever-shifting concerns that are passing 
in the world around him ;• and yet he is dead to the 
world all the while. How are you to find it out ? Try 
him with some question of difficulty; set his duty 



LIFE, PROSPECTS, AND DUTY. 231 

before him, and let that duty be painful, and let it 
involve some considerable deprivation of gain or of 
pleasure ; and with self-sacrificing devotion, he will 
obey the truth, and glory in the trial. Mark him in the 
midst of circumstances of discouragement and woe, 
when waters, of a full cup are wrung out to him ; he is 
sustained by an energy of which the world wotteth not, 
nerved with a principle to which it is an ntter stranger ; 
richer blood animates him, loftier inspirations sparkle 
from his eye, and though surrounded by the things of 
sense, and of course in some sort influenced by their 
impressions upon him, he tells you plainly that he seeks 
a country, nay, that he has already " risen with Christ," 
and that he lives in the land which is at once his 
treasury and his home. 

We may illustrate the Apostle's meaning again by a 
reference to another passage ; that in which he speaks 
of " always bearing about in the body the dying of the 
Lord Jesus." The primary reference of the Apostle is to 
the sufferings which himself and his compatriots were 
called upon to undergo in attestation of the resurrection 
of Christ. The enemies of the cross, those who were 
doing their utmost to destroy Christianity, were per- 
plexed and baffled by the disappearance of the Saviour 
from the tomb ; and to account for the mystery, they 
charged the apostles with the felony of their master's 
body. Thus two statements were put forth directly 
opposite in character and tendency ; the rulers said the 
body was stolen ; the apostles said the body had risen. 




232 the christian's death, 

The latter could not be disproved ; but so intense was 
their hostility against the Nazarene, that persecution 
and power were made use of — compendious, but, 
happily in this case, ineffectual arguments — to silence 
the proclaimers of the truth. The Apostle refers to this 
in the words that are now before us, and Jells them in 
effect that though famine might draw the fire from his 
eye, and long-continued suffering might repress and 
undermine the buoyancy of his spirit, and though his 
flesh might creep and quail beneath the pressure of 
these agonies, and though in all these ways he might 
bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
yet, by the patience with which those sufferings were 
borne, by the consolations which abounded in the 
midst of them, nay, by the fact of the sufferings them- 
selves, he could point to his marred and shattered body, 
and say that not the dying only, but the life, the im- 
mortal life of Jesus was every moment manifested there. 
But we are not disposed to limit this bearing about in 
the body the dying of the Lord Jesus to apostolic times. 
It is not a thing of one generation merely. "We are not 
now called upon, as were our fathers, to do it in the fur- 
nace ; the fires of outward persecution have well-nigh 
forgotten to burn ; but it has an existence still as actual 
and as constant as in days of yore. The Christian 
does so every moment of his life, because every 
moment of his life he exercises faith in Christ. And 
his faith is not only active and appropriating, but 
realizing in its tendency: it not only unfolds to him 



LIFE, PKOSPECTS, AKD DUTY. 233 

the riches and confers on him the blessings of the 
mighty offering ; it paints it as a living vision before 
the eye of his mind. Darting back through two 
thousand years of past time, it places him in the midst 
of the crowd gathered at the crucifixion, aye, at the very 
foot of the cross. He sees the victim ; there is no delu- 
sion in the matter ; he walks along the thronged and 
bustling streets ; men cross his path in haste, speeding 
away, the one to his farm and the other to his mer- 
chandise; he converses with a thousand beings, he 
transacts a thousand things; but that scene is ever 
before him ; as the magnet of his highest attractions, 
his eye always trembles to the cross, and in the midst 
of evidence fresher every moment he joins in the cen- 
turion language, his glad language too, "Truly this man 
was the Son of God." "With such a spectacle as that 
before him, how can he live unto the world ? With the 
glances of so kind an eye constantly beaming upon him, 
how can his desires be on earth? Heaven claims him, 
for his treasure and his heart are there. Nay, so 
entirely does this death unto sin — for I suppose you 
have found out that is what we mean — take possession 
of the Christian, that, as the Apostle in another place 
expresses it, he is " crucified with Christ." He is not 
only an anxious spectator, he is something more, he is a 
living sacrifice. He has his cross. As Christ died for 
sin, he dies to sin, and they both conquer by dying. 
As by the dying of the Saviour, the power of death was 
destroyed, and the world was freed from his dominion, 



234 THE CHRISTIAN S DEATH, 

so by the dying of the sinner, the principle of evil is 
dethroned, the new heart is gained, and the man 
becomes " a new creature in Christ Jesus." 

This is what we imagine the Apostle to mean when he 
says of Christians, "Ye are dead;" and as it is only 
when we have thus died that we can be truly said to 
live, allow us to ask you if you are thus dead unto sin 
and alive unto God ? Have you realized this death 
unto sin, or this birth unto righteousness? Has this 
deep, abiding change passed upon you? Or are you 
still living to the world, the circle of this life your 
bounded prospect, and its fleeting enjoyments your only 
reward? Examine yourselves, brethren, and may the 
Spirit help you to a right decision ! 

II. We pass upward from the truth of death to the 
truth of life. "For ye are dead," says the Apostle, 
" and your life " — a life that you have notwithstanding 
that seeming death — " is hid with Christ in God." In 
the creation of God there seems to be nothing absolute 
or final; everything seems rather in a rudimentary 
state — a state in which it is susceptive of increase, 
development, expansion, improvement. It is so in 
nature. The seed is cast into the earth; years elapse 
before there are the strength and shadow of the tree. 
The harvest waves not in its luxuriant beauty at once ; 
" there is first the blade, then the ear, after that the full 
corn in the ear." And what is thus possible in the ordi- 
nary processes of nature is capable of spiritual analogies. 



LIFE, PK0SPECT3, AND DUTY. 235 

Man ends not in his present condition. The very im- 
perfections with which it is fraught, shadow forth a 
mightier being. It would seem as if glimpses of this 
great truth shot across the minds of the sages of ancient 
Greece and Rome. It is interesting to watch their 
minds in their various and continual operations, espe- 
cially when, as it were, brought out of themselves, to 
see them struggling with some great principle just glow- 
ing upon them from the darkness of previous thought, 
to see them catching occasional glimpses of truth in the 
distance, and pressing forward, if haply they might 
comprehend it fully. It must have been in one of those 
very ecstasies that the idea of immortality first dawned 
upon them ; for, after all, crude and imperfect as their 
notions were, they must be regarded rather as conjec- 
ture than opinion. It was reserved for Christianity, by 
her complete revelations, to bring life and immortality 
to light, to unfold this master-purpose of the Eternal 
Mind, and to give permanence and form to her impres- 
sions of the life that dies not. You remember that the 
inspired writers, when speaking about the present state 
of being, scarcely dignify it with the name of life, com- 
pared with the life to be expected; but they tell us 
there is provided for us, and awaiting us, a life worthy 
of our highest approbation, and of our most cordial en- 
deavor ; a life solid, constant, and eternal. This is the 
promise " which he hath promised us " — as if there were 
no other, as if all others were wrapped up in that great 



236 the christian's death, 



benediction — " this is the promise which he hath pro- 
mised us, even eternal life ;" and of this life they tell ns 
that it is "hid with Christ in God." 

It is hidden, in the first place, in the sense of secrecy ; 
it is concealed, partially developed ; we do not know 
much about it. Revelation has not been minute in her 
discoveries of the better land. Enough has been re- 
vealed to confirm our confidence and to exalt our faith. 
The outlines of the purpose are sketched out before us, 
but the details are withheld. Hence, of the life to come 
the Apostle tells us that "we know in part, we see 
as through a glass darkly ;" through a piece of smoked 
glass like that through which we look at an eclipse of 
the sun ; our senses can give us no information concern- 
ing it, for it is beyond their province ; reason cannot 
find it out, for it banies her proudest endeavors. We 
may go to the depth in search of this wisdom : " the 
depth saith, It is not in me." Imagination may plume 
her finest pinion, and revel in the ideal magnificence 
she can bring into being ; she may so exalt and amplify 
the images of the life that is, as to picture forth the ]ife 
that will be ; it is a hidden life still, for it hath not en- 
tered into the heart of man to conceive it; shadows 
dense and impervious hang on its approach ; clouds and 
darkness are round about its throne. And we are 
equally destitute of information from experience. None 
of those white-robed companies, who have enjoyed this 
life from the beginning, have been commissioned to 
explain tons its truths; none of those now venerable 



LIFE, PROSPECTS, AND DUTY. 237 

ones, who have travelled the road, who have experienced 
the change, have returned ; they come not full fraught 
with the tidings of eternity to tell to the heedful multi- 
tudes tales from beyond the grave. Those dark and 
silent chambers effectually cut off all communication 
between the mortal and the changed. We may interro- 
gate the spirits of the departed, but there is no voice, 
not even the echo of our own. We do not complain of 
this secrecy, because we believe it to be a secrecy of 
mercy. The eye of the mind, like the eye of the body, 
was dazzled with excess of light ; and if the full reali- 
ties of the life to come were to burst upon us, we should 
be dazzled into blindness ; there would be a wreck of 
reason, and the balance of the mind's powers would be 
irrecoverably gone. Moreover, we walk by faith, not 
by sight, and a fuller revelation would neutralize some 
of the most efficient means for the preservation of 
spiritual life, and bring anarchy and discord into the 
beautiful arrangements of God. Thus is this hiding 
beneficial to believers. Yes, and I will go further than 
that : to the sinner it is a secrecy of mercy. Wonder 
not at that. Imagine not that if this vacant area could 
be filled to-day with a spirit of perdition, with the 
thunder scar of the Eternal on his brow, and his heart 
writhing under the blasted immortality of hell, then 
surely if he could tell the secrets of his prison-house 
those who are now among the impenitent would be 
affrighted, and repent and turn. " I tell you nay, foi 
if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither would 



238 

they be persuaded though, one were to rise from the 
dead." 

Just another thought here on this head. Especially 
is this life hidden in the sense of secrecy, in the hour 
and the article of death. An awful change passes upon 
one we love, and who has loved the Lord Jesus Christ. 
He looks pale and motionless ; we see not the glances 
of his eye, we hear not the music of his voice, and as he 
lies stretched breathless in his slumbers, it is very diffi- 
cult to believe that he is not dead. " But he is not dead, 
but sleepeth." Can you credit it, O ye mourners? Is 
there no chord in your stricken hearts, ye bereaved 
ones, that trembles responsive to the tone, " he is not 
dead, but sleepeth ?" His life is with him yet as warm, 
and as young, and as energetic as in days gone by ; only 
it is hidden " with Christ in God." We mourn you not, 
ye departed ones that have* died in the faith, for ye have 
entered into life. Natural affection bids us weep, and 
give your tombs the tribute of a tear, but we dare not 
recall you. Ye live ; we are the dying ones ; ye live in 
the smile and blessing of God. Our life is " hid with 
Christ in God." 

And then it is hidden, secondly, not only in the 
sense of secrecy, but in the sense of security, laid up, 
treasured up, kept safely by the power of Christ. The 
great idea seems to be this : the enemy of God, a lion 
broken loose, is going round the universe in search of 
the Christian's life, that he may undermine and destroy 
it ; but he cannot find it ; God has hidden it ; it is hid- 



LIFE, PKOSPECTS, AND DUTY. 239 

den with Christ in God. It is a very uncertain and 
precarious tenure upon which we hold all our posses 
sions here ; everything connected with the present life 
is fleeting ; plans formed in oversight and executed in 
wisdom are, by adverse circumstances, rendered abor- 
tive and fruitless ; gourds grow for our shade, and we 
sit under them with delight ; the mildew comes, and 
they are withered ; friends twine themselves around 
our affections, and as we come to know them well and 
love them, they are sure to die ; and upon crumbling 
arch, and ruined wall, and battlemented height, and 
cheeks all pale that but awhile ago blushed at the 
praise of their own loveliness, old Time has graven in 
the word of the preacher, that there is nothing un- 
changeable in man except his tendency to change. 
But it is a characteristic of the future life, that it is 
that which abideth ; the lapse of time affects not those 
who live eternally ; theirs is immortal youth ; no ene- 
my, however organized and mighty, can avail to de- 
prive them of it; no opposition, however subtile and 
powerful, can wrest it from him with whom it is secure. 
Where is it hidden ? "With Christ ; the safest place in 
the universe, surely, for anything belonging to Christ's 
people. Where he is, in that land irradiated with his 
presence, and brightening under the sunshine of his 
love ; on that mountain whose sacred inclosure God's 
glory pavilions, and within which there shall in nowise 
enter anything that shall hurt or destroy. Where is 
this hidden ? In God, in the great heart of God, who 



24:0 THE CHRISTIAN S DEATH, 

is never faithless to his promise, and whose perfections 
are pledged to confer it upon persevering believers. 
Oh, we will not fear. Unbelief may suggest to us its 
thoughts of suspicion and warning ; fear may shrink 
back appalled from a way so untried and dangerous ; 
passion may stir our unruly elements in our too carnal 
minds, and presumptuously fight against our faith ; our 
ancient enemy may do his best to aggravate into in- 
tenser force the giant war ; but we will not fear ; our 
life shall be given to us, for it is hidden with Christ in 
God. Even now, in the prospect, we feel a joy of 
which the world wotteth not— heart-warm, fervent, 
entrancing, a joy which we may suffer to roam un- 
checked in its raptures because it is based upon the 
truth divine. 

III. "We pass on, thirdly, to the Christian's prospects. 
" When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
ye also appear with him in glory." 

These words imply two things : first, enjoyment; and 
secondly, manifestation. 

They imply, first, enjoyment. "We observed before, 
that revelation has not been minute in her discoveries 
of the better land ; we have the outlines of the purpose 
before us, but the details are withheld ; and yet enough 
is revealed not merely to fulfill, but to exalt our highest 
hopes. The similitudes under which the recompense is 
presented in Scripture cannot fail to fill us with antici- 
pations of the most delightful kind. It is brought be- 
fore us, you remember, as an inheritance, incorruptible] 



LIFE, PROSPECTS, AND DUTY. 241 

and undefiled ; as a paradise ever vernal and blooming - 
and, best of all, amid those trees of life there lnrks no 
serpent to destroy; as a country through whose vast 
region we shall traverse with nntired footsteps, and 
every fresh revelation of beauty will augment our 
knowledge, and holiness, and joy; as a city whose 
every gate is of jewelry, whose every street is a sun- 
track, whose wall is an immortal bulwark, and whose 
ever-spreading splendor is the glory of the Lord ; as a 
temple through which gusts of praise are perpetually 
sweeping the anthems of undying hosannas ; above all, 
as our Father's house where Christ is, where our elder 
brother is, making the house ready for the younger 
ones, where all we love is clustered, where the out- 
no wings of parental affection thrill and gladden, and 
where the mind is spell-bound, for aye, amid the sweet 
sorceries of an everlasting home. Is there no enjoy- 
ment in images like these ? Does not the very thought 
of them make the fleet blood rush the fleeter through 
the veins % And yet these and far more are the pros- 
pects of the Christian : knowledge without the shadow 
of an error, and increasing throughout eternity ; friend- 
ship that never unclasps its hand, or relaxes from its 
embraces ; holiness without spot or wrinkle, or any such 
thing ; the presence of God in beatific and imperishable 
vision, combine to make him happy each moment, and 
to make him happy forever. 

Then these words imply manifestation as well as 
enjoyment. " When Christ, who is our life, shall 

11 



242 the christian's death, 

appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." 
The world says : " You talk about your life being hid- 
den ; the fact is, it is lost ; it is only a gloss of yours to 
say it is hidden." But it is not lost, it is only hidden ; 
and when Christ, who has it, shall appear, " then shall 
ye also appear," to the discomfiture of scoffers and to 
the admiration of all them that believe ; " then shall ye 
also appear with him in glory. The worldling looks at 
Christians now, and, in some of his reflective moods, he 
finds a great difference between them, but it is a diffe- 
rence he can hardly understand. With his usual short- 
sightedness, and with his- usual self-complacency, he 
imagines the advantage to be altogether upon his own 
side ; he looks at the outside of the man, and judges 
foolish, judgment. Perhaps he glances at his garments, 
and they are tattered, it may be, and homely, and Jie 
turns away with affected disdain. Ah ! he knows not 
that beneath that beggar's robe there throbs a prince's 
soul. Wait a while ; bide your time ; stop until the 
manifestation of the sons of God. With what different 
feelings will earth's despised ones be regarded at the 
bar of judgment and before the throne divine! How 
will they appear when they are confessed, recognized, 
honored, in the day when he is ashamed of the wicked, 
and when the hell beneath and the hell within will 
make them ashamed of themselves ? " Beloved," says 
the rejoicing Apostle, " now are we the sons of God;" 
that is something, that is no mean gift, that is no small 
bestowment, to have that in hand ; " now are we the 



LIFE, PROSPECTS, AND DUTY. 243 

sons of God." " Salvation," it is as if the Apostle had 
said, " is a small thing, a thing unworthy of. God ;" it is 
a small thing to take a captive out of a dungeon, and 
turn him loose upon the cold world's cruel scorn ; it is 
a grand thing to take a captive out of a dungeon, and 
set him on a throne ; and that is done with all those 
who believe on Jesus: being justified by faith, they 
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
" And if children " (for they have received the adop- 
tion of sons), " then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs 
with Christ." Oh ! salvation is not to be named in con- 
nection with the grand, the august, the stately splendor, 
the sonship, which is given unto those who put their 
trust in Christ. "Beloved, now are we the sons of 
God ; but it doth not yet appear what we shall be ;" so 
transcendent, so surpassing is the recompense, that we 
cannot conceive it now ;. " it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be ;" it doth not yet appear even to ourselves ; 
we shall be as much astonished at the splendor of the 
recompense as any one beside. Oh ! when we are 
launched into the boundless, when the attentive ear 
catches the first tones of heaven's melody, when there 
burst upon the dazzled eye the earliest glimpse of 
beatific vision, how shall we be ready almost to doubt 
our own identity — " Is this I ? It cannot be the same. 
Is this the soul that was racked with anxiety and 
dimmed with prejudice, and stained with sin ? Is this 
the soul whose every passion was its tempter, and that 
was harassed with an all-absorbing fear of never reach- 



244 the christian's death, 

ing heaven ? Why, not an enemy molests it now ; not 
a throb shoots across it now ; those waters that used to 
look so angry and so boisterous, how peacefully they 
ripple upon the everlasting shore ; and this body, once 
so frail and so mortal, is it, can it be, the same ? Why, 
the eye dims not now; the cheek is never blanched 
with sudden pain ; the fingers are not awkward now ; 
but, without a teacher, they strike the harp of gold, and 
transmit along the echoes of eternity the song of Moses 
and the Lamb. This is conjecture, you say; not, we 
hope, unwarranted ; but even now, dark as our glimpse 
is, unworthy as our conceptions are of the promised 
recompense, there is enough to exalt us into the poet's 
ecstasy, when, throned upon his own privilege, he 
sings : 

" On all the kings of earth 
"With pity we look down ; 
And claim, in virtue of our birth, 
A never-fading crown." 

IV. And now, then, you are ready for the duty, I 
am sure. " For your life is hid with Christ in God. 
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
ye also appear with him in glory." "Set your affection 
on things above." Oh, how solemnly it comes, with all 
this exceeding weight of privilege to back it! It 
silences the question urged, it overrides gainsay ; it is 
emphatic and solemn, and to the Christian resistless. 
"Set your affections on things above." For a Christian 
to be absorbed in the gainfnlness of the world, or fasci- 



LIFE, PROSPECTS, AND DUTY. 24o 

nated by its pleasures, is at once a grievous infatuation 
and a sin. It is as if a prince of high estate and regal 
lineage were to demean himself in the haunts of beg- 
gars, to the loss of dignity and imperilling the honor of 
his crown. "What have you, the blood-royal of heaven, 
to do with this vain and fleeting show ? Arise, depart ; 
this is not your rest; it is polluted. And yet how 
many of you have need of the exhortation this morning, 
a Set your affections on things above V 9 Have you not 
— now let the spirit of searching come unto you — have 
you not, by your cupidity, avarice, and huckstering lust 
of gain, distanced the world's devotees in what they 
had been accustomed to consider their own peculiar 
walk ? Have you not trodden so near the line of 
demarcation between professor and profane, that you 
have almost trodden on it, and almost trodden it out ? 
Have you not, strangely enamored of visions of distant 
joy, postponed as uninnuential and unworthy, the joy 
that abideth, or, like the man in the allegory, raked up 
with a perseverance that in aught else might have been 
laudable, the straws beneath your feet, while above 
your head there glittered the diadem of glory? Oh, 
awake ! arise ! this is not your rest ; it is polluted. 
" Set your affections on things above, and not on things 
on the earth." If riches be your possession, be thank- 
ful for them ; do all the good with them you can ; if 
friends make music in your dwelling, regard them as 
rose-leaves scattered upon life, and by and by to drop 
from life away. Seek for bags that wax not old, friends 



246 the christian's death, 

that neither weep nor change in the nnintermitting 
reunions of heaven's own glory. 

How does this prospect of glory breathe encourage- 
ment to the soul in the sad season of bereavement ! 
"He that believeth in Jesus"— this is the promise — 
" though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever 
liveth and believeth on Jesus shall never die." Still 
sounds that great utterance of the Master running along 
the whole line of being, heard over the graves of the 
loved, amid rustling leaf and fading flower, and wither- 
ing grass, and dying man, " He that liveth and believeth 
in Jesus shall never die." Orphan, believest thou this ? 
Widow, from whom the desire of thine eyes has been 
taken away with a stroke, believest thou this? Ah! 
some of us have got friends safe-housed above the 
regions of the shadow and the storm, but we would not 
bring them back again. "We would sing for them the 
hallowed paean : 

" By the bright waters now thy lot is cast, 
Joy for thee ! happy friend ; thy bark hath passed 

The rough sea's foam. 
Now the long yearnings of thy soul are stilled, 

Home, home! 
Thy peace is won, thy heart is filled ! 
Thou art gone home." 

But we can listen to the voice which they And time to 
whisper to us in some of the rests of the music : " Be ye 
therefore followers of us who now, through faith and 
patience, are inheriting the promises." 



LIFE, PEOSPECTS, AND DUTY. 24:7 

Some of you liave not got, perhaps, to the realization 
of this promise yet. There is a misgiving within ; there 
is a yet unsettled controversy between your Maker and 
yourself. You have not seen Jesus; you have not 
heard the pardoning voice or felt the power of the re- 
conciling plan. Oh, come to Christ. To-day the Holy 
Spirit of Christ is here, waiting to take of the precious 
things of Christ, and to show them unto you ; waiting 
this morning to do honor to Jesus. Hallow the conse- 
cration of this house by the consecration of the living 
temple of your hearts. God is no longer the unknown 
God, to be viewed with servile apprehension, or fol- 
lowed with slavish dread ; he is God in Christ, recon- 
ciling the world unto himself. Redemption is no longer 
a theorem to be demonstrated, a problem to be solved, 
a riddle to be guessed by the wayward and the wander- 
ing ; it is the great fact of the universe that Jesus Christ 
hath, by the grace of God, tasted death once for every 
man. Mercy is no longer a fitful and capricious exer- 
cise of benevolence ; it is the very power, and justice, 
and truth of God. A just God: look that out in the 
Gospel dictionary, and you will find it means a Saviour. 
Heaven is no longer a fortress to be besieged, a city to 
be taken, a high, impregnable elevation to be scaled ; 
it is the grand metropolis of the universe, to which the 
King, in his bounty, has thrown up a royal high-road 
for his people, even through the blood of his Son. Oh, 
come to Jesus with full surrender of heart, and all these 
blessings shall be yours. Some do not hold this Ian- 



248 the christian's death, etc. 

guage ; they belong to this world, and are not ashamed 
to confess it. " Bring fresh garlands ; let the song be 
of wine and of beauty ; build fresh and greater barns, 
where I may bestow my fruits and goods." But then 
cometh the end. " The rich man died and was buried, 
and in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torment ; and 
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom ; he 
cried and said " — -the only prayer that I know of, the 
whole Bible through, to a saint or angel, and that by a 
damned spirit, and never answered — "I pray thee, 
father Abraham, that thou wouldst send Lazarus that 
he may dip the tip of his ringer in water, and cool my 
tongue, for I am tormented in this name." Listen to it, 
the song of the lost worldling in hell. Who will set it 
co music ? Which heart is tuning for it now ? Sinner, 
is it thine ? Is it thine ? Don't put that question away. 
Ask yourselves and your consciences in the sight of 
God, and then come, repent of all your sins, flee for re- 
fuge to the hope that is laid before you in the Gospel, 
trusting in serene and child-like reliance upon Christ. 
Only believe, and yours shall be the heritage in the 
world to come. 






X. 

THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST. 

" But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ; for whom I have suffered the loss 
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." — 
Philippians iil . 7, 8. 

There can be no sense of bondage in the soul when 
the tongue utters words like these. Albeit they flow 
from the lips of a prisoner, they have the true ring of 
the inner freedom, of the freedom which cannot be 
cribbed in dungeons. They are the expressions of a 
far-sighted trust which yields to no adverse circum- 
stances, which endures, as seeing him who is invisible, 
in the confidence of quiet power. There was a very 
tender relationship subsisting between Paul and the 
Philippian Church. They had sent Epaphroditus to 
visit him in his prison at Home, to bear him their sym- 
pathies, and to administer their liberality, in his hour 
of need; and in return for their kindness, and as a 
token of his unfailing love, he addressed them this 
epistle. It is remarkable that it contains no solitary 
word of rebuke, that it recognizes in them the exist- 

11* 249 



250 THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST. 

ence of a grateful and earnest piety, and that it aims 
throughout at their consolation and encouragement. 
In the commencement of the present chapter he warns 
them against certain Judaizing teachers, who would 
fain have recalled them to the oldness of the letter, and 
who made the commandments of God of none effect by 
their tradition. "Beware of dogs, beware of evil- 
workers, beware of the concision." He tells them that 
the true seed of Abraham, the royal heritors of the 
covenant, are those who worship God in the spirit, and 
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the 
flesh. He proceeds to remind them that if there were 
benefit in external trusts, he stood upon a vantage- 
ground of admitted superiority. "Though I might 
also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man 
thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the 
flesh, I more : Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock 
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the 
Hebrews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; concerning 
zeal, persecuting the Church ; touching the righteous- 
ness which is in the law, blameless." But, putting all 
this aside, renouncing these grounds of confidence as 
carnal and delusive, resting in sublime reliance upon 
Christ, he records the noble declaration of the text, at 
once the enduring testimony of his own faith and the 
perpetual strength of theirs. " But what things were 
gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubt- 
less, and I count all things but loss for the excellency 
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ; for whom 



THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST. 251 

I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them 
but dung, that I may win Christ." "We can conceive 
of no testimony better calculated than this to cheer the 
timid, or to confirm the wavering, to silence the mis- 
givings of the doubtful, or cause the inquiring soul to 
sing for joy. All the conditions which we can possibly 
desire in order to render testimony accredited and valu- 
able, are to be found here. It is not the utterance of a 
man of weak mind, infirm of purpose and irresolute in 
action, whose adhesion would damage rather than fur- 
ther any cause he might espouse. It is Paul, the Apos- 
tle, who speaks, the sharp-witted student of Gamaliel, 
a match for the proudest Epicurean, versed in scholastic 
subtilties and in all the poetry and philosophy of the 
day, with a mental glance keen as lightning, and a 
mental grasp strong as steel. It is not the utterance 
of youth, impassioned and, therefore, hasty; sanguine 
of imagined good, and pouring out its prodigal applause. 
It is Paul, the man, who speaks, with ripened wisdom 
on his brow, and gathering around him the experience 
of years. It is not the utterance of the man of heredi- 
tary belief, bound in the fetters of the past, strong in 
the sanctities of early education, who has imbibed a 
traditional and unintelligent attachment to the profes- 
sion of his fathers. It is Paul, the some-time persecutor, 
who speaks, the noble quarry which the arrows of the 
Almighty struck down when soaring in its pride. It is 
he who now rests tenderly upon the cause which he so 
lately labored to destroy. It. is not, finally, the utter- 



252 

ance of inexperience, which, awed by the abiding im- 
pression of one supernatural event, and having briefly 
realized new hopes and new joys, pronounces prema- 
turely a judgment which it would afterward reverse. 
It is Paul, the aged, who speaks, who is not ignorant 
of what he says and whereof he doth affirm, who has 
rejoiced in the excellent knowledge through all the 
vicissitudes of a veteran's life ; alike amid the misgiv- 
ings of a Church slow to believe his conversion, and 
amid the dissipation and perils of his journeys ; alike 
when first worshipped and then stoned at Lystra, in the 
prison at Philippi, and in the Areopagus at Athens ; 
alike when in the early council it strengthened him, 
"born out of due time," to withstand to the face of 
Peter, the elder Apostle, because he was to be blamed, 
and when, melted into almost womanly tenderness on 
the sea-shore at Miletus, it nerved him for the heart- 
breaking of that sad farewell ; alike when buffeting 
the wintry blasts of the Adriatic, and when standing 
silver-haired and solitary before the bar of ]STero. It 
is he of amplest experience who has tried it under 
every conceivable circumstance of mortal lot, who, 
now that his eye has lost its early fire, and the spring 
and summei are gone from him, feels its genial glow 
in the kindly winter of his years. Where can we find 
testimony more conclusive and valuable ? Hear it, ye 
craven spirits, who would dastardly forswear the Master, 
and let it shame you into Christian manhood ! Hear it, 
ye bruised and tender souls, that dare hardly venture 



253 

faith ok. Jesus, and catching inspiration and courage 
from it, let your voices be heard : 

" Hence, and forever from my heart, 
I bid my doubts and fears depart, 
And to those hands my soul resign, 
Which bear credentials so divine." 

In the further exhibition of this passage to-night, we 
ought to refer, in the first place, to the Apostle's insuf- 
ficient grounds of trust, and secondly, to the compen- 
sating power of the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ. I greatly fear, however, that the first part 
of the subject will be all that I can manage to compass 
within the time allotted for this evening's service. 
Our remarks will, therefore, mainly dwell upon the 
grounds of trust which the Apostle here repudiates: 
" "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
Christ." 

There is something remarkable in the way in which 
the Apostle refers to the past, and the respectful manner 
in which he speaks of the faith of his fathers, and of his 
youth. It is often a sign rather of servility than of 
independence when men vilify their former selves. 
The Apostle had not renounced Judaism in any moment 
of passion, nor in any prejudice of novelty. Strong con- 
victions had forced him out of his old belief. He had 
emerged into a faith purer and more satisfying far. 
Bat there were memories connected with the fulfilled 
dispensation which he would not willingly let die. 



254 

There were phases of his own inner life there. For long 
years, Judaism had been to him his only interpreter of 
the divine, the only thing which met a religions 
instinct, active beyond that of ordinary men. The 
grounds of trust which he now found to be insufficient, 
had been the halting-places of his soul in its progress 
from the delusive to the abiding, from the shadowy to 
the true. He could not forget that there hung around 
the system he had abandoned, an ancient and tra- 
ditional glow : it was of God's own architecture ; the 
pattern and its gorgeous ceremonial had been given by 
himself in the Mount ; all its furniture spoke of him in 
sensuous manifestation and magnificent appeal. His 
breath had quivered upon the lips of its prophets, and 
had lashed its seers into their sacred frenzy. He was 
in its temple service, and in its holy of holies; amid 
shapes of heavenly sculpture, the light of his presence 
ever rested in merciful repose. How could the Apostle 
assail it with wanton outrage or flippant sarcasm ? 
True, it had fulfilled its mission, and now that the age 
of spirituality and power had come, it was no longer 
needed ; but the halo was yet upon its brow, and like 
the light which lingers above the horizon long after the 
setting of the sun, there shone about it a dim but 
heavenly splendor. While, however, the Apostle was 
not slow to confess that there was glory in that which 
was to be done away, he was equally bold in affirming 
its absolute worthlessness in comparison with the yet 
greater glory of that which remained. " "What things 



THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST. 255 

were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." It 
will be found, I think, to be remarkable in the review 
of the grounds of trust, which the Apostle here repu- 
diates, how much there is kindred to them in the 
aspects of modern faith, and how multitudes now cling 
to them with tenacity, and hope to find in them their 
present and eternal gain. Let us remind you, then, for 
a few moments, of the catalogue of trusts which the 
Apostle tried and repudiated. 

The first thing he mentions, is sacramental efficacy. 
" Circumcised on the eighth day." He names circum- 
cision first, because it was the early and indispensable 
sacrament of the Jewish people, the seal of the 
Mosaic covenant, the distinguishing badge of the 
Israelites from all other nations of mankind. Moreover, 
he tells us he had the advantage of early initiation : 
" Circumcised the eighth day." The Gentile proselytes 
could, of course, only observe the rite at the period of 
conversion, which might be in manhood or in age. But 
Paul was hallowed from his youth, from the eighth day 
of his life introduced into the federal arrangement, and 
solemnly consecrated to the service of the Lord. He 
was not insensible to this external advantage, but he 
does not hesitate to proclaim it worthless as a ground 
of acceptance with God. There are multitudes by 
whom baptism is regarded in the same reverent light as 
was circumcision by the Jews of old. If they do not 
absolutely rejoice in it, as the manner of some is, as the 
instrument of their regeneration, at least they have a 



256 the apostle's grotjnd of trust. 

vague notion of a benefit which they deem it to have 
conferred, and are living on the unexhausted credit of 
their parents' faith and prayer. If, in adult age, they 
make any profession of religion, it is by partaking of the 
Eucharist, whose elements they invest with mystic and 
transforming power. There is no inward change in 
them. They are conscious of no painstaking and daily 
struggle with corruption. They have no conflict for a 
mastery over evil. No percptible improvement passes 
upon their conduct and habits from their periodical 
communions. And yet, absolutely, their only hope for 
the future, springs from the grace of the baptismal font, 
and from the efficacy of the sacramental table ; for they 
persuade themselves into the belief that as by the ordi- 
nance of baptism there was a mysterious conveyance to 
them of the title-deeds of an inheritance, so by the 
excellent mystery of the Lord's Supper, they are as 
inexplicably ripened into meetness for its possession. 
Brethren, we would not under-value the ordinances of 
God's appointing. We are not insensible to the benefit 
when believing parents dedicate their offspring unto 
God, when the hand of parental faith rests upon the ark 
of the covenant, and claims that there should be shed 
out upon the little ones the spiritual influences of the 
Holy Ghost. Chiefest among our religious memories, 
treasured in the soul with a delight which is almost awe, 
are some of those holy .communions, when — the life 
infused into the bread, the power into the wine — Christ 
has been evidently set forth before his grateful wor- 



257 

shippers, and strong consolations have trooped up to the 
heavenly festival. But it must not be forgotten that all 
the graces of ordinances, all the beatific and inspiring 
comforts which flow through divinely appointed ser- 
vices, are not in the services themselves, but in the 
fullness of the loving Saviour, the anointed one in the 
vision of Zechariah, without whom and without whose 
Spirit they could have neither efficacy nor power. 
Precious as are the collateral benefits of baptism, and 
hallowing as are the strength and blessing of the Holy 
Eucharist, we do solemnly proclaim them worthless as 
grounds of acceptance before God. Hear it, ye bap- 
tized, but unbelieving members of our congregation ! 
Hear it, ye devout and earnest communicants ! Sacra- 
ments have no atoning virtue, no value at all except as 
avenues to lead the soul to Christ ; and if, in a trust 
like this, you pass your lives, and if, in the exercise of a 
trust like this, you die, for you there can remain no- 
thing but the agonizing wakening from a deception that 
will have outlasted life, and the cry wailed from the 
outside of a door, forever barred, ""We were early dedi- 
cated unto thee ! were accounted as thy followers ; we 
have eaten and drank in thy presence ; Lord, Lord, 
open unto us." That is the first ground of trust which 
the Apostle here disclaims. 

Passing on in the catalogue, we find that the second 
repudiated confidence is an honored parentage, " Of the 
stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of 
the Hebrews." To have been circumcised the eighth 



258 

day, proved that he had been born of parents professing 
the Jewish faith ; but, inasmuch as the Gentile prose- 
lytes also observed the rites of circumcision, it did not 
prove that he had been descended of the family of 
Israel. He, therefore, shows that in purity of lineal 
descent, in all those hereditary honors upon which men 
dwell with pride, he could boast with the proudest of 
them all. He was of the stock of Israel. But ten of 
the tribes had revolted from their allegiance to Jehovah, 
had soiled their nobility by their vices, had entered 
into degrading companionship with surrounding idola- 
ters. He, therefore, reminds them further, that he was 
of the tribe of Benjamin ; illustrious, because it had 
given the first king to Israel ; more illustrious, because, 
at the apostasy of Jeroboam it maintained purity of 
Divine worship, and held itself faithful among the 
faithlessness of many. Moreover, he had not been 
introduced into the federal relationship by personal 
adoption nor by the conversion of his fathers. There 
had been in his ancestry no Gentile intermarriages ; he 
was " a Hebrew of the Hebrews." His genealogy was 
pure on both sides. There was no bar sinister in his 
arms. He was a lineal inheritor of the adoption, and 
the glory, and the covenant. There was much in all 
this on which in those times the Apostle might have 
dwelt with pride ; men, generally vaunt those honors 
which are theirs by birth. " 

It was no light thing surely, then, to belong to nobi- 
lity that could trace its far descent from the wor tines 



259 

of the older world, to have for his ancestors those 
anointed and holy patriarchs who trod the young earth 
when nn wrinkled by sorrow, undimmed by crime, 
untouched by the wizard wand of time ; to have in his 
veins the same blood that marched proudly over the 
fallen ramparts of Jericho, or that bade the affrighted 
sun stand still at Gibeon, or that quailed beneath the 
dread thunders of the mount that burned. And yet all 
this accumulated pride of ancestral honor the Apostle 
counted " loss for Christ." That the Jews prided them- 
selves on their descent from Abraham, you may gather 
from many passages of Scripture. You remember 
when our Saviour was conversing with them on the 
inner freedom, he was rudely interrupted with the 
words, " We be Abraham's children ; we were never in 
bondage to any man." And that they regarded this 
descent from Abraham as in some sort a passport to 
heaven, we may gather from the Saviour's rebuke : 
" Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham 
to our father, for I say unto you, that of these stones 
God is able to raise up children unto Abraham." And 
there are multitudes now, brethren, who have no better 
hope than this. There are many in this land of ours 
who are stifling the misgivings of conscience, and the 
convictions of the Holy Spirit, with the foolish thought 
that they have been born in a Christian country, sur- 
rounded with an atmosphere of privilege, or are the 
sons " of parents passed into the skies." 
Look at that holy patriarch, forsaken of kindred, 



260 

bankrupt in property, and slandered in reputation, 
" Afflicted grievously and tempted sore," and yet hold- 
ing an integrity as fast in his sackcloth as ever he did 
in his purple, and amid terrible reverses blessing the 
goodness which but claimed the gift it gave ! Mark 
that honorable counsellor, pious amid cares of state, 
and pomps, and pleasure, walking with God amid the 
tumult and luxury of Babylon, and from the compa- 
nionship of kings speeding to his chamber that had its 
lattice open toward Jerusalem ! Listen to that preacher 
of righteousness, as now with earnest exhortation, and 
now with blameless life, he testifies to the whole world, 
and warns it of its coming doom, and then, safe in the 
heaven-shut ark, is borne by the billows of ruin to a 
mount of safety. "What sublime examples of consist- 
ency and piety are here ! Surely, if a parent's faith 
can avail for children anything, it will be in the families 
of Noah, Daniel, and Job ! 

JSTow, listen — listen — ye who rest on traditional faith, 
ye who are making a raft of your parents' piety to float 
you over the dark, stormy water into church fellowship 
here, and into heavenly fellowship hereafter — listen to 
the solemn admonition : " Though these three men, 
JSToah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live they should 
deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith 
the Lord God." Alas ! if the grandson of Moses was 
an idolatrous priest; if the children of Samuel per- 
verted judgment and took bribes; if David, the man 
after God's own heart, mourned in hopeless agony over 



261 

Absalom dead ! how sad the witness that religion is not 
a hereditary possession ! how appalling the danger lest 
you, children of pious parents, nursed in the lap and 
surrounded with the atmosphere of godliness, should 
pass down into a heritage of wrath and sorrow, aggra- 
vated into intenser hell for you by the remembrances 
of the piety of your fathers ! That is the second ground 
of trust which the Apostle disclaims. 

Passing on .in the catalogue, we find that the next 
repudiated confidence is religious authority. " As 
touching the law, a Pharisee." This was not the first 
time the Apostle had made this affirmation. You 
remember that before the tribunal of the high priest, 
he affirmed, with a not unholy pride, "lama Pharisee, 
the son of a Pharisee." And, at Agrippa's judgment- 
seat, he appealed even to the infuriated Jews whether 
he had not, according to the straightest sect of their 
religion, lived a Pharisee. And, indeed, there was 
much in those early times which an honest Pharisee 
might be excused for counting gain. The word has got 
in our days, to be regarded as a sort of synonym for all 
that is hypocritical and crafty ; but a Pharisee in the 
Jewish times, an honest, earnest Pharisee, was a man 
not to be despised. In an age of prevailing indiffe- 
rence, the Pharisee rallied around him all the godly, 
religious spirit of the time. In an age of prevailing 
skepticism, the Pharisee protested nobly against the 
free-thinking Sadducee, and against the courtly Herod- 
ian. In an age of prevailing laxity, the Pharisee incul- 



262 the apostle's ground of trust. 

eated, by precept at all events, austerity of morals and 
sanctity of life. There might be ostentation in his 
broad phylacteries ; at all events, it showed he was not 
ashamed of the texts which he had traced out upon 
the parchment. A love of display might prompt the 
superb decorations with which he gilded the tombs 
of the prophets ; at all events, and that is no small 
virtue, he had not ceased to honor the memory of 
righteousness. There might be self-glory in his fasts, 
rigidly observed, and in his tithes, paid to the uttermost 
farthing; at all events, there was recognition of the 
majesty, and obedience to the letter of the law. I 
repeat it, in those early times there was much which 
an honest Pharisee might be excused for counting gain. 
But this also the Apostle " counted loss for Christ." 

There are multitudes now, I need not remind you, 
whose trust is their orthodoxy, whose zeal is their par- 
tisanship, whose munition of rocks is their union with 
the people of God. There is some danger, believe me, 
lest even the tender and hallowed associations of the 
Church should weaken the sense of individual respon- 
sibility. We are apt to imagine, amid the round of 
decorous externalisms, when the sanctuary is attractive 
and the minister approved, when there is peace in the 
borders and wealth in the treasury, when numbers do 
not diminish, and all that is conventionally excellent is 
seen, that our own piety must necessarily shine in the 
lustre of the mass, that we are spiritually healthy, and 
need neither counsel nor warning. 



263 

The Church to which we belong, perhaps, has " a 
name to live;" and we imagine that the life of the 
aggregate must, in some mysterious manner, imply the 
life of the individual. And though our conscience re- 
proach us sometimes, and though we are frivolous in 
our practice, and censorious in our judgment of others, 
and though, in our struggle with evil, the issue is some- 
times compromise and sometimes defeat, although at- 
tendances at religious ordinances, an occasional and 
stifled emotion under a sermon, a spasm of convulsive 
activity, a hurried and heartless prayer, are really the 
whole of our religion — we are sitting in our sealed 
houses, we pass among our fellows for reputable and 
painstaking Christians, and are dreaming that a joyous 
entrance will be ministered to us abundantly at last. 
0, for thunder-pealing words to crash over the souls 
of formal and careless professors of religion, and startle 
them into the life of God ! I do solemnly believe that 
there are thousands in our congregations, in different 
portions of the land, who are thus dead while they are 
seeming to live ; and with all fidelity I would warn you 
of your danger. It is a ghastly sight when the flowers 
of religious profession trick out a mortal corpse. It is 
a sad entombment when the church or chapel is the 
vault of the coffined spirit, "dead in trespasses and 
sins." That is the third ground of trust which the 
Apostle here disclaims. 

Passing on in the catalogue, we find that the fourth 
repudiated confidence is intense earnestness, " Concern- 



264 

ing zeal, persecuting the Church." There was much in 
this that would awake a responsive chord in the heart 
of a bigoted Jew. The Apostle tells us he was present 
at the martyrdom of Stephen ; and in his zeal for the 
repression of what he deemed to be a profane mystery, 
he made havoc of the Church, breathed out threaten- 
ings and slaughter, and persecuted unto the death. 
Often, indeed, did the sad memory press upon him in 
his after life, bowing him to contrition and tears. " I 
am less than the least of the apostles, that am not meet 
to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church 
of God." But there is incontestable evidence in all 
this of his zeal for the Jewish faith, that he did not hold 
the truth in unrighteous indolence, but that he exerted 
himself for its promulgation; that devotion with him 
was not a surface sentiment, nor an educational neces- 
sity, but a principle grasping, in the strong hand of its 
power, every energy of his nature, and infibered with the 
deepest affections of his soul. And there was much in all 
this, which men around him were accustomed to regard 
as gain ; but this also he esteemed " as loss for Christ." 
I know no age of the world, brethren, when claim for 
the gainfulness of zeal, abstract zeal, would be more 
readily conceded than in the age in which we live. 
Earnestness, it is the god of this age's reverence. Men 
do not scrutinize too closely the characters of the heroes 
they worship. Mad ambition may guide the despotic 
hand ; brain may be fired with dark schemes of tyranny; 
the man may be a low-souled infidel, or a vile seducer; 



THE APOSTLE S GROUND OF TRUST. 265 

he may be a poet stained with licentiousness, or a war- 
rior stained with blood ; let him be but earnest, and 
there is a niche for him in the modern Pantheon. And, 
as it is an understood principle that the character of the 
worshippers assimilates to the beings they worship, the 
devotees have copied their idols, and this is an earnest 
age. The trade spirit is in earnest ; bear witness, those 
of you who have felt its pressure. Hence the unpre- 
cedented competitions of business ; hence the gambling, 
which would rather leap into wealth by speculation, 
than achieve it by industry ; hence the intense, the un- 
flagging, indomitable, almost universal greed of gain. 
Men are earnest in the pursuit of knowledge. The 
press teems with cheap, and not always wholesome, 
literature. Science is no longer the heritage of the 
illuminati, but of the masses. _ The common mind has 
become voracious in its appetite to know; and a cry 
has gone up from the people which cannot be disre- 
garded, " Give us knowledge, or else we die." It is 
manifest in all departments and in every walk of life. 
Men live faster than they used to do. In politics, in 
science, in pleasure, he is, he must be earnest who suc- 
ceeds. He must speak loudly and earnestly who would 
win the heedful multitudes to listen. Such is the im- 
petuosity of the time, that the timid and the vacillating 
find no foothold on the pavement of life, and are every 
moment in peril of being overborne and jostled aside, 
trampled down beneath the rude waves of the rushing 

and earnest crowd. 

12 



266 THE APOSTLE S GROUND OF TRUST. 

While such, general homage is paid to earnestness, 
what wonder if some people should mistake it for reli- 
gion ; and if a man should imagine that, because he is 
zealous in the activities of benevolence, warmly attached 
to certain church organizations, and in some measure 
sympathetic with the spiritual forces which they em- 
body, he is really a partaker of the un defiled religion of 
the Bible? And I must go further than this. The 
tolerance — take it to yourselves those who need it — the 
tolerance with which believers in Christ — those who are 
really members of the Church, and have " the root of 
the matter" within them — the tolerance with which 
they talk about, and apologize for " the zealous but un- 
converted adjuncts of the Church," tends very greatly 
to confirm them in their error. Cases throng upon 
one's memory and conscience as we think upon the 
subject. 

There is a man — he has no settled faith at all in the 
principles of Christian truth ; he is cast forever upon a 
sea of doubt and darkness ; " ever learning, yet never 
able to come to the knowledge of the truth." He may 
consider without acting, till he dies. But what says the 
tolerant spirit of the age ? " He is an earnest thinker, 
let him alone ; he has no faith in the Bible ; he has no 
faith in anything certain, settled, and indisputable, but 
he is an earnest thinker; and, although life may be 
frittered away without one holy deed to ennoble it, if 
he live long enough, he will grope his way into convic- 
tion by and by." 



267 

There is another man ; he is not all we would wish 
him to be ; he is unfrequent and irregular in attendance 
upon the ordinances of God's house ; he is not always 
quite spiritually-minded; we should like to see him 
less grasping in his bargains; but he is an earnest 
worker, a zealous partisan, an active committee-man, 
and we hope all will be right with him in the end. 

There is another man, and more chivalrous in his 
sense of honor; he is known to hold opinions that are 
dangerous, if not positively fatal, upon some vital sub- 
jects of Christian truth. But he is an amiable man ; he 
is very kind to the poor; he has projected several 
measures of amelioration for their benefit ; the widow 
blesses him when she hears his name. He is an earnest 
philanthropist; and, thus sheltered in the shadow of 
]ais benevolence, his errors pass unchallenged, and have 
a wider scope for mischief than before. 

I do solemnly believe that there are men who are 
confirmed in their infidelity to Christianity by the tri- 
bute thus paid to their zeal. It may be that some in- 
fatuated self-deceivers pass out of existence with a lie in 
their right hand, because earnestness, like charity, has 
been made to " cover a multitude of sins." Since there 
is this danger, it is instructive to find out what is the 
Apostle's opinion of mere earnestness. It may be a good 
thing— there can be no doubt of that— when it springs 
from prompting faith, and constraining love, and when 
the object on behalf of which it exerts its energies is 
intrinsically excellent. It is a noble thing ; we cannot 



268 

do without it ; it is at once the pledge of sincerity and 
an augury of success. It may be a good thing, hut it 
may he a blasphemy; just the muscle in the arm of a 
madman, that nerves his frantic hand to scatter fire- 
brands, and arrows, and death ; but do not deceive 
yourselves. 

Divers gifts may have been imparted to you; you 
may have discrimination of the abstruse and the pro- 
found; the widow may bless your footsteps, and the 
orphan's heart may sing for joy at your approach; the 
lustre of extensive benevolence may be shed over your 
character; opinions may have rooted themselves so 
firmly in your nature that you are ready to suffer loss 
in their behalf, and to covet martyrdom in their attesta- 
tion, giving your body to be burned. But, with all this 
earnestness, indisputably earnest as you are, if you have 
not charity, diviner far — if you have not "faith that 
works by love and purifies the heart " — earnest, indis- 
putably earnest as you are, it profiteth you nothing; 
your confidence will fail you in the hour of trial ; its 
root is rottenness, and its blossom will go out as dust.- 
That is the fourth ground of trust that the Apostle here 
disclaims. 

Yet again, and finally. The next ground of trust is 
ceremonial blamelessness, " Touching the righteousness 
which is in the law, blameless." The Apostle's zeal for 
the Jewish faith was rendered more influential by the 
purity of his life. There are some whose zeal is but a 
cloak for licentiousness, and who shamefully violate, in 



269 

daily practice, the rescripts of the religion for which 
they contend. But the Apostle was not one of those im- 
pious fanatics; he had been in sincerity and truth a 
Jew, so rigid and inflexible in his adhesion to the laws 
of Moses that he was esteemed a pattern, and rejoiced 
in as a pillar of the truth. Not that before God the 
most devout Pharisee had anything whereof to glory, 
but that, in the eyes of men, who judge in short-sighted- 
ness, and who judge in error, he passed for a reputable 
and blameless man. And this, also, the most ordinary, 
the most wide-spread ground of false confidence, the 
Apostle counted " loss for Christ." 

I need not remind you, I am sure, how deep in the 
heart of man, resisting every attempt to dislodge it, 
self-righteousness lurks and broods ; and how men come 
to regard themselves, in the absence of atrocious crime, 
and in the presence of much that is humanizing and 
kindly, as ripening for the kingdom of heaven. And 
it is no marvel — I do not think it one jot of a 
marvel — if we consider what the usages of society are, 
and the verdicts it passes on the virtues and vices of the 
absent. 

There is a tribunal out among men that never 
suspends its sessions, and that is always estimating 
themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves 
among themselves, and so is not wise. From acting as 
judge in some of these arbitration cases of character, by 
acting as an arbiter himself, the man comes to know 
the standard of the world's estimation, and how it is 



270 the apostle's ground of trust. 

that it comes to its decisions ; and, in some reflective 
mood, possibly, he tries himself by it, and, looking 
down below him, he sees, far beneath him in the scale, 
the ontcast and the selfish, the perfidious, the trampler 
npon worldly decencies, and the scandalously sinful. 
And then he looks into his own case, and he sees his 
walk through life, greeted with the welcome of many 
salutations, that his name passes unchallenged, his 
integrity vouched for among men. Then he looks into 
his own heart, and finds it is vibrating to every chord 
of sympathy; friends troop around him with proud 
fondness ; children " climb his knees, the envied kiss 
to share." 

It is no marvel, I say, if a man accustomed to such 
standards of arbitration, should imagine that the good- 
ness which has been so cheerfully acknowledged on 
earth, will be as cheerfully acknowledged in heaven, 
and that he who has passed muster with the world so 
well, will not be sent abashed and crest-fallen from the 
judgment-seat of God. 

And there is nothing more difficult than to rouse 
such a one from his dangerous and fatal slumber. 
There are many, who, thus building on the sand, have 
no shelter in the hour of the storm. You may thunder 
over the man's head all those passages which tell of the 
radical and universal depravity of our race. Yes, and 
he admires your preaching, and thinks it is wonder- 
fully good for the masses, out it has no sort of applica- 
tion to him. He does not feel himself to be the vile 



THE APOSTLE 8 GROUND OF TRUST. 271 

and guilty creature you describe ; he has an anodyne 
carried about with him to silence the first misgiving of 
the uneasy conscience, and he lies down in drugged and 
desperate repose. And there are many, it may be, who 
continue in this insidious deception, and are never 
aroused except by the voice of the last messenger, or by 
the flashing of the penal fires. That is the last ground 
of trust which the Apostle disclaims. 

And now of the things that we have spoken, what is 
the sum ? Just this. You may be early initiated into 
the ordinances of the Christian Church ; you may have 
come of a long line of spiritually illustrious ancestry, 
and be the sons "of parents passed into the skies;" 
you may give an intellectual assent to the grand har- 
mony of Christian truth ; you may be zealous in certain 
activities of benevolence, and in certain matters con- 
nected even with the Church of God itself; you may 
have passed among your fellows for a reputable and 
blameless man, against whom no one would utter a 
word of slander, and in whose presence the elders stand 
up in reverence, as you pass by ; and \yet, there may 
pile upon you — (O God, send the word home ! ) — there 
may pile upon you all the accumulation of carnal 
advantage and carnal endowment; you may gain all 
this world of honor, and lose your own soul. "And 
what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul ?" 

I have no time, as I imagined, to dwell upon the com- 
pensating power of the excellency of the knowledge of 



272 

Christ. There is this compensation, however, " What 
things were gain to me," says the Apostle, " those I 
counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ Jesus my Lord." This compensation runs 
through creation ; it seems to be a radical law both in 
the physical and spiritual government of God. You 
see it in things around you. A man climbs up to high 
place, and calumny and care go barking at his heels. 
There is beauty, dazzling all beholders, and consump- 
tion, "like a worm i' the bud, preying upon its 
damask cheek." There is talent, dazzling and enrap- 
turing, and madness waiting to pounce upon the vacated 
throne. 

Oh, yes, and there is a strange and solemn affinity, 
too, in the Bible, between crime and punishment. I 
can only indicate just what I mean. The Jews rejected 
Christ, perseveringly rejected Christ ; and one of their 
pleas, you remember, was, " If thou let this man go, 
thou art not Caesar's friend ;" and to conciliate the 
Roman power, they rejected Christ. That was their 
crime ; what was their punishment ? The Romans did 
come, by and by, and "took away their place and 
nation." Pharaoh issued his enactment, that all the 
male children of Israel should be drowned: that was 
the crime ; what was the punishment ? Pharaoh and 
his host were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea by 
and by. Hezekiah took the ambassadors of Babylon 
through the treasure-chambers of silver and gold, osten- 



THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST. 273 

tatiously showing them his wealth : that was the crime ; 
what was the punishment? The treasures of silver 
and gold went off captive to Babylon by and by. 
David, in the lust of his power, took the census of 
the people, and numbered them : that was the crime ; 
w T hat was the punishment ? The pestilence fell upon 
the people whom David had numbered, and dried up 
the sources of the strength in which he had boasted so 
fondly. 

And, just to remind you of another case, who are 
those who are represented as standing at the barred 
gate of heaven, knocking, frantic and disappointed, 
outside, and crying in tones of agony that mortal lips 
cannot compass now, thank God ! " Lord, Lord, open 
to us." Who are they? Not the scandalously sinful, 
not those who on earth were alien altogether — outcast 
altogether — proscribed altogether from the decencies 
and decorum of the sanctuary of God. ]STo ; those who 
helped to build the ark, but whose corpses have been 
strewed in the waters of the deluge ; those who brought 
rafters to the tabernacle, but who, as lepers, were thrust 
out of the camp, or as transgressors, were stoned beyond 
the gate ; those who, on earth, were almost Christians ; 
those who, in the retributions of eternity, are almost 
saved ; beholding the Church on earth through the 
chink of the open door, watching the whole family as 
they are gathered, with the invisible presence and the 
felt smile of the Father upon them ; beholding the 

family as they are gathered, beatific, and imperishable, 

12* 



274 

in heaven; but the door is shut. Almost Christians! 
almost saved ! Oh strange and sad affinity between 
crime and punishment ! What is your retribution to 
be ? " Every one shall receive according to things he 
has done in the body, whether they be good, or whether 
they be bad." 

Oh ! come to Christ — that is the end of it — come to 
Christ. Hallow this occasion by dedicating your- 
selves living temples unto the Lord. He will not refuse 
to accept you. Mark the zeal with which the Apostle 
Paul proclaimed the truth: mark the zeal, the love, 
indomitable and unfailing, with which he clung to the 
Master — " I determined to know nothing among men 
but Christ, and him crucified." Oh rare and matchless 
attachment ! fastening upon that which was most in 
opprobium and in contumely among men. Never did 
the earnest student of philosophy, as he came away 
from some Socratic prelection, utter his affirmation, " I 
am determined to know nothing among men save 
Socrates, and him poisoned;" never did enraptured 
youth listen to the persuasive eloquence of Cicero, and 
utter his affirmation, " I determined to know nothing 
among men save Cicero, and him proscribed." But Paul 
takes the very vilest brand of shame, and binds it about 
his brow, as a diadem of glory : " 1 determine to know 
nothing among men but Christ, and him crucified." 
Yes, that is it, " Christ, and him crucified." " God 
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross." In the 
cross is to be our chiefest glory. 



275 

Trust that cross for yourselves ; take hold of it ; it is 
cousecrated. In all circumstances of your history, in 
all exigencies of your mortal lot, take firm hold of the 
cross. "When the destroying angel rides forth upon the 
cloud, when his sword is whetted for destruction, clasp 
the cross ; it shall bend over you a shield and a shade ; 
he will relax his frown, and sheathe his sword, and pass 
quickly, harmlessly by. When you go to the brink of 
the waters, that you are about to cross, hold up the 
cross ; and by magic power they shall cleave asunder, 
as did ancient Jordan before the ark of the covenant, 
and you shall pass over dry-shod, and in peace. When 
your feet are toiling up the slope, and you arrive at the 
gate of heaven, hold up the cross; the angels shall 
know it, and the everlasting doors shall unbar them- 
selves, that you may enter in. "When you pass through 
the ranks of applauding seraphim, that you may pay 
your first homage to the throne, present the cross, and 
lower it before the face of the Master, and he, for 
whose sake you have borne it, will take it from you, 
and replace it with a crown. 



XL 
THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

" And he said, 0, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but 
this once : peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will 
not destroy it for ten's sake." — Genesis xviii. 32. 

Most remarkable and most encouraging is this 
instance of prevailing prayer. It might well stimulate 
us to the exercise of sublimer faith when we behold a 
mortal thus wrestling with Omnipotence, wrestling with 
such holy boldness that justice suspends its inflictions, 
and cannot seal the sinner's doom. Passing over that, 
however, with all the doctrines it involves, there is 
another thought couched in the text, to which, at the 
present time, I want to direct your attention. The 
history of nations must be regarded, by every enlight- 
ened mind, as the history of the providence of God. It 
is not enough, if we would study history aright, that 
we follow in the track of battles, that we listen to the 
wail of the vanquished and to the shout of the con- 
querors ; it is not enough that we excite in ourselves a 
sort of hero worship of the world's foster-gods, the stal- 
warth and noble peerage of mankind ; it is not enough 
that we trace upon the page of history the subtile and 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 277 

intricate developments of human character. To study 
history aright, we must find God in it, we must always 
recognize the ever-present and the ever-acting Divinity, 
working all things according to the counsel of his bene- 
volent and holy will. This is the prominent aspect in 
which history ought to be studied, or grievous dishonor 
is done to the Universal Ruler, and intense injury is 
inflicted upon the spirits of men. God, himself, you 
remember, has impressively announced the guilt and 
danger of those who regard not the works of the Lord, 
nor the operations of his hands. The history of ancient 
Israel, for instance, the chosen people, led by the pillar 
of cloud by day, and by the pillar of fire by night, 
through the marching of that perilous wilderness, what 
was it but the successful development, in a series of 
wondrous deliverances, of the ever-active providence of 
God ? There were some things in that history which, of 
course, were incapable either of transfer or repetition ; 
but the history itself included,- and was ordained to set 
forth certain prominent principles for the recognition 
of all nations ; principles which were intended to assert 
the rights of God, and to assert the obligations of his 
creatures ; principles which are to be consummated in 
their evolution amid the solemnities of the last day. It 
was so in the case of Sodom, punished as an example 
of God's chosen people. Their transgressions had 
become obduracy, their obduracy had blossomed out 
into punishment ; but a chance in the Divine govern- 
ment yet remained to them ; peradventure there might 



278 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

have been ten righteous in the city. If there had been 
ten righteous in the city, those pious men would have 
been the substance, the essence, the strength of the 
devoted nation ; for them, on their account, for their 
sakes, the utter ruin of the land might have been 
averted, and through them, after the Divine displeasure 
had passed by, there might have sprung up renewed 
strength and recovered glory. "We may fairly, I think, 
take this as a general principle, that pious men in all 
ages of the world's history, are the true strength of the 
nations in which, in God's providence, they are privi- 
leged to live ; oftentimes averting calamity, oftentimes 
restoring strength and blessing, when, but for them, it 
would have lapsed and gone forever. This is the prin- 
ciple which I purpose, God helping me, to apply for a 
moment to our own times, and to the land in which we 
live ; and in order to give the subject a great deal of a 
practical character, I will, in the first place, paint the 
pious men, and then show the effect which the consis- 
tent maintenance of a course of piety may be expected 
to insure. 

I. In the first place, who are the pious men ? Who 
are they whom God, who never judges in short-sighted- 
ness, who sees the end from the beginning, and who 
cannot possibly be deceived or mistaken in his estimate 
of human character, who are they whom God desig- 
nates, " the holy seed that shall be the substance 
thereof ' — the pious men that are the strength of the 
nations in which they live? In order to sustain the 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 279 

honorable appellation which is thus assigned, men mnst 
cultivate habits of thought and of practice that are 
appropriate to such a character. I will just mention 
two or three particulars. 

In the first place, they are pious men who separate 
themselves avowedly and at the utmost possible dis- 
tance from surrounding wickedness. Men are placed 
under the influence of religion, in order that they may 
separate from sin, in order that they may be governed 
by the habits of righteousness and true holiness. In 
times when depravity is especially flagrant, there is a 
special obligation upon pious men to bring out their 
virtues into braver and more prominent exercise, re- 
garding that surrounding depravity as in no wise a 
reason for flinching, or for cowardice, or for compro- 
mise, but rather for the augmented firmness of their 
purity. Now, it cannot for one moment be doubted, 
that in the times in which we live iniquity does most 
flagrantly abound. There is not a sin which does not 
exist, and exists in all rankness and impurity. Because 
of swearing the land mourns. God's Sabbaths are 
systematically desecrated, his sanctuaries contume- 
liously forsaken, his ordinances trampled under foot, his 
ministers met with the leer oftentimes due to detected 
conspirators, and regarded as banded traitors, who have 
conspired against the liberties of the world. The lusts 
of the flesh scarcely affect to conceal their fllthiness, 
everywhere unveiling their forms, and everywhere 
diffusing their pestilence. We do not venture upon 



280 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

any sort of comparison, we do not venture to compare 
the aggregate depravity of this age with the depravity 
of any age that has preceded. "We do not affirm the 
general fact, that the heart of man is " deceitful and 
desperately wicked," and that the depravity we see 
around us, the exhibition of the carnal mind, u which is 
enmity against God," is most fearfully aggravated by 
the abundance of privilege by which the people are 
surrounded. Now, it is the duty, I repeat, of those 
who would have God's estimate of them as pious men, 
that they should regard this depravity as invoking them 
to bear the testimony of unsullied and spotless holiness. 
Let the exhortations on this matter which are scattered 
throughout the pages of the Bible be solemnly pon- 
dered. " Be not conformed to this world, but be ye 
transformed according to the renewing of your mind, 
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and 
perfect will of God." "Abstain from the appearance of 
evil." In times when depravity is especially flagrant? 
do not even borrow of the garments of falsehood ; do 
not let there be any meretricious semblance of that 
which is hateful in the sight of God. Abstain from the 
appearance of evil. Come out of it so thoroughly that 
the fellowships and intercourse of social life do not 
seduce you into a sort of complicity. "Be not par- 
takers of other men's sins. Have no fellowship with 
the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove." 
" Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, 
for what fellowship hath light with darkness, and what 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 281 

concord hath Christ with Belial, and what part hath he 
that believeth with an infidel ?" '* Cleanse yourselves 
from all filthiness of flesh and spirit ; perfecting holi- 
ness in the fear of God." 

Yon will not fail to perceive that the whole of these 
passages have one aim and one summons, and that is 
holiness; holiness, as spotless in the secrecy of indi- 
vidual consciousness as in the jealous watch of men ; 
holiness shrined in the heart and influencing benignly 
and transforming the entire character ; holiness, that is 
something more chivalrous than national honor ; holi- 
ness, something that maintains a higher standard of 
right than commercial integrity ; holiness, something 
that is more noble-minded than the conventional cour- 
tesies of life; holiness which comes out in every-day 
existence, hallowing each transaction, taking hold of the 
money as it passes through the hand in ordinary cur- 
rency, and stamping upon it a more noble image and 
superscription than Caesar's ; holiness written upon the 
bells of the horses and upon the frontlet of the forehead, 
an immaculate and spotless lustre exuding, so to speak, 
from the man in daily life, so that the world starts back 
from him, and tells at a glance that he has been with 
Jesus. Now, brethren, it is to this, to the exercise and 
maintenance of this unflinching holiness, that you are 
called. Here is the first prominent obligation of pious 
men. You are to confront every evil with its exact and 
diametrical opposite ; and he who in circumstances 
like these in which we stand, ventures to hesitate, 01 



282 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

ventures to parley, brand hirn as a traitor to his coun- 
try, a traitor to his religion, and a traitor to his God. 

Secondly, if you would be what God regards as pious 
men, you must cultivate firm attachment to the doc- 
trines of Christian truth. There is, brethren, in our 
day, a very widely-diffused defectiveness of religious 
profession, a very widely-diffused departure from the 
faith that was " once delivered to the saints." This is a 
Christian country. Men call it so, I know ; but there 
is in daily practice a strange and sad departure from 
the precepts of Christianity — ay, on the part of men by 
whom the theory of this being a Christian country is 
most noisily and boisterously maintained. 

Are you strangers to the presence in the midst of us 
of the dark and subtile spirit of unbelief; a venal press 
and active emissaries poisoning the fresh blood of 
youth, disheartening the last hope of age, and which, if 
their own account of the circulation of their pernicious 
principles is to be relied upon, has already tainted 
hundreds of thousands with that infectious venom 
whose poison lies not in the destruction of the body ? 
True, it is for the most part bland, conciliatory, 
plausible, rather than audacious and braggart, as in 
former times, veiling its deadly purpose in song or in 
story. But the dagger is not the less deadly because 
the haft is jewelled, and infidelity is not the less infi- 
delity, not the less pernicious, not the less accursed, 
because genius has woven its stories to adorn it, and 
because fancy has wreathed it into song. 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 283 

Are you strangers to the avowed denial on the part 
of some of the divinity and atonement of our Lord 
Jesus Christ % to the man-exalting opinion which relies 
for its own salvation upon the piled up fabric of its own 
righteousness, or which through the flinty rocks of self- 
righteous morality, would tunnel out a passage to the 
eternal throne ? 

Are you strangers to the workings of the grand 
apostasy darkening the sunlight of the Saviour's love, 
dislocating the perfection of the Saviour's work, ham- 
pering the course of the atonement with the frail 
entangled frame-work of human merit, restless in its 
endeavors to regain its ascendency, crafty, and vigilant 
and formidable as ever ? 

Are you strangers to the heresy which has made its 
appearance in the midst of a body once deeming itself 
the fairest offspring of the Reformation, and which 
would exclude thousands from covenanted mercies, be- 
cause they own not priestly pretensions, and conform 
not to traditional rites ? 

Are you strangers in the other quarter of the horizon 
and of the sky, to dark and lowering portents that have 
come over with rationalistic and German infidelity? 
Brethren, there is a duty, solemn and authoritative, 
resting upon the pious men that they hold fast that 
which was " once delivered to the saints." Let the 
exhortations, too, on this matter, be carefully pondered. 
"Be no more children tossed to and fro with every 
wind of doctrine, by the sleight of man and cunning 



2§zj. THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION". 

craftiness whereby they lie in wait to betray." " Stand 
fast" — not loose, not easily shifted, having a firm 
foundation — "stand fast in the faith once delivered nnto 
the saints." Be " rooted in the faith ;" be " grounded 
in the faith ;" " contend earnestly for the faith." Bre- 
thren, here is another invocation, and it is solemnly 
binding upon you. And while there are some around 
us that would rob Christ of his grace, and others that 
would rob Christ of his crown, and others, more royal 
felons, that would steal both the one and the other, let 
it be ours to take our stand firm and unswerving by the 
altars of the truth ; let our determination go forth to the 
universe, "I determine to know nothing among men, 
save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 

And, then, thirdly, if you would be pious men as God 
estimates piety, you must cultivate cordial, brotherly 
love. In times like these, there is a solemn obligation 
resting upon all " who hold the head " to cultivate the 
spirit of unity with all "who hold the head." By 
unity, we do not mean uniformity. There is none, there 
can be none in the free universe of God. You have it 
not in nature. You may go out into the waving wood- 
land, when death is on the trees, and you may prune 
their riotous growth, and mold, and shape, and cut them 
into something like a decent, a decorous uniformity ; but 
the returning spring, when it comes, will laugh at your 
aimless labor. 

Wherever there is life, there will be found variety of 
engaging forms which attract and fascinate the eye. 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 285 

We do not mean uniformity, therefore ; the harmony of 
voices, or the adjustment of actions, the drowsy repeti- 
tion of one belief, or the harmonious intonation of one 
liturgy, but we mean " the unity of the spirit in the 
bond of peace," which we are to intensely labor to 
maintain and procure. Let the exhortations on this 
matter also be very solemnly pondered. " A new com- 
mandment," so that there are eleven commandments 
now; the decalogue has been added to by this new 
commandment, which is, indeed, the substance and es- 
sence of all the rest. "A new commandment give I 
unto you, that ye love one another." "Be kindly 
affectioned one to another, in brotherly love, in honor 
preferring one another." Nay, the Apostle does not 
hesitate to set it down as one of the surest evidences of 
Christian discipleship. " We know that we have passed 
from death unto life, because we love the brethren." 
Compliance with these exhortations is always imperative, 
especially imperative in seasons of national danger. 
Everything that is ominous, everything that is solemn, 
everything that is portentous around us, must be re- 
garded as an earnest call to Christians to live together 
in love. This love is to be cherished everywhere — to 
be cherished toward those who are members of the same 
section of the universal Church. Here, of course, there 
should be no orphan's heart. Here, all should feel 
themselves members of a commonwealth. There should 
be a rejoicing with those that do rejoice, and a weeping 
with those that weep ; and, as by electric fire, the wants 



286 THE EFFECTS OF PTETY ON A. NATION. 

and the wishes of the one should be communicated to, 
and acknowledged by the whole, that it should not only 
be cherished in our own communion, but toward all who 
hold " the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, and 
in righteousness of life." Wherever Christ is acknow- 
ledged, his grace magnified, his crown vindicated, his 
law made honorable — wherever the service of Christ is 
the aim, and the glory of Christ is the purpose, there 
the Church should know as Christian and should hail as 
brethren. This duty is one that has been scandalously 
neglected in the times in which we live; and that 
neglect has darkened the aspect and augmented the 
perils of the times. Brethren, we must all amend if we 
would not betray. And when the Church of Christ 
shall combine in heart as in spirit one, then shall the 
great building of the universe progress. God shall 
smile upon the workmen, " the glory of the latter house 
shall exceed the glory of the former," and the whole 
"building fitly framed together shall grow up into a 
holy temple of the Lord." 

Then, fourthly, if we would be pious men as God esti- 
mates piety, we must be zealous in endeavor for the 
spread of the Gospel, and for the conversion of the 
world. The errors and the crimes of which we have 
spoken, render this essential. "We have but to gather 
into our minds the contemplation of guilt so heinous, so 
offensive that it rises up ' in the presence of the Holy 
One, and calls for vengeance as he is seated upon his 
throne; then, we have but to remember the conse- 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 287 

quences of that guilt, everywhere producing misery, 
everywhere drying up the sources of spiritual affluence, 
everywhere exposing to the unending perditions of hell. 
Now, brethren, nothing — and I would speak as one 
member of the army summoning others to the battle- 
field — nothing will avail but the combined, and devoted, 
and persevering exertions of the members of the Church 
below. How else shall we attempt to grapple with the 
depravity around us ? Parliamentary enactments, what 
can they do ? Threats to affright, or bribes to seduce, 
what can they do ? Patronage in all its prestige, and 
all its power, all that can be possibly brought out of 
State treasury or of State influence, what are they? 
Availless utterly without the power and Spirit of God. 
~No ; there must be a band of faithful men who are thus 
renovated and redeemed going forth in the name of the 
Lord. They must sustain the ministry in existing pas- 
torates, and spread it wherever it has never been estab- 
lished. They must support institutions for the educa- 
tion of the entire man, institutions based upon the Word 
of God. They must become themselves preachers of 
" the truth as it is in Jesus ;" by prayer, by influence, 
by example, by effort, they must display all the grace 
which has redeemed them; and especially they must 
all in earnest, repeated, importunate supplications be- 
siege the throne of grace in prayer. There is another 
summons, the last I shall give you on this matter to- 
night, and you are now to answer it with intense energy, 
with intense zeal. Coldness here is irrational. Ardor 



288 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

here is reason. Indifference here is foolishness. Ear- 
nestness, or, if you will, enthusiasm here is the highest 
and sublimest wisdom. 

If you would be pious men, therefore, as God esti- 
mates piety, you are to come out from the world and 
to be separated from it ; you are to hold fast the doc- 
trines you have received ; you are to cultivate to each 
other the tenderest brotherly love ; and you are to be 
energetic in heart for the conversion of the world. 

II. I come now, secondly and briefly, to notice the 
effects which we are warranted in expecting such con- 
duct as this to insure. This is the doctrine of the text, 
that Sodom would have been spared if the ten righteous 
men had been there. Pious men are presented to us, 
therefore, as the safety of the nation in which they live. 
This is very beautifully presented in several other parts 
of Scripture. You have it, for instance, in the pro- 
phecy of Isaiah, lxv. 8, 9 : " Thus saith the Lord, As 
the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, 
Destroy it not ; for a blessing is in it ; so will I do for 
my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all. 
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of 
Judah an inheritor of my mountains ; and mine elect 
shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there." 
Then, again, in the prophecy of Malachi, iii. 10, 11 : 
" Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there 
may be meat in mine house, and prove me now here- 
with, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the 
windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 289 

there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I 
will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall 
not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your 
vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the 
Lord of hosts." 

We see here the development of the general principle 
for which we contend, that God preserves nations for 
the sake of pious men. The annals of the past show 
how very frequently he has put to naught statesman- 
ship, fleets, and armies, and has rendered honor to truth, 
meekness, and righteousness. This I do solemnly be- 
lieve to be the case in our own land in this crisis of its 
affairs, and I am bold to affirm my conviction, that the 
destinies of England and of the British Empire are at 
this moment in the hands of its pious men. If they be 
faithful to their high trust and to the vocation to which 
they are eminently and signally called, nothing can 
harm us ; no weapon that is formed against us shall 
ever be able to prosper. I think this might be made 
out from the history of the past, both as to temporal 
and spiritual matters. I appeal to you whether it is 
not manifest that the temporal interests of a nation are 
bound up in its piety? Let pious men prevail in a 
land, let the population become imbued with the spirit 
and with the leaven of evangelical godliness, what is 
the consequence ? Order is at once preserved. As 
their holiness spreads, as their unworldly yet earnest 
example manifests itself and begins to be felt, sounder 

views prevail. The moral is felt to exert a supremacy 

13 



290 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

over the secular ; the political agitator, the infidel dema- 
gogue, the philoosphical theorist, are scouted as physi- 
cians of no value ; and men everywhere learn to submit 
to the orderly restraints and the well-regulated govern- 
ment of law. 

Let pious men prevail, and they will keep up the 
freedom of a land. I do not mean that crouching 
emasculation on the one hand, nor that ribald licen- 
tiousness on the other hand, which ha^e both been 
dignified by the name by extreme political parties ; 
but I mean well-ordered and rational liberty ; liberty 
which respects the rights of other people at the same 
time that it asserts and vindicates its own ; liberty 
which with one hand renders to Caesar the things that 
are Csesar's, and with the other hand takes care to 
render to God the things that are God's ; liberty which 
honors men as men, just because the Divine command 
tells it to " honor all men," and because, all the world 
over, there is nothing so royal as a man. That liberty 
will be preserved wherever pious men are found, and 
wherever the example of these pious men begins to 
spread itself among people. 

And, then, pious men will preserve the prosperity of 
a land. There is a false prosperity which must be aban- 
doned ; there is a false honor which must be speedily 
forsworn ; but that prosperity which is substantial and 
abiding will remain under the influences of piety. Art 
will minister then not to luxury but to truth ; science 
will minister then not to infidelity but to truth ; com 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 291 

merce will minister then not to selfishness but to be- 
nevolence ; and other realms shall render to us their 
unbought and unpurchasable homage, and the sons of 
our country, in their not unholy pride, may wave their 
banner to the wind, with the motto on it : 

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves besides." 

Yes, brethren, it is Britain's altar and not Britain's 
throne, Britain's Bible and not Britain's statute book, 
that is the great, and deep, and strong source of her 
national prosperity and renown. Do away with this \ 
suffer that fidelity with which, in some humble measure, 
we have borne witness for God, to be relaxed ; let our 
Sabbaths be sinned away at the bidding of unholy or 
mistaken mobs ; let us enter into adulterous and un- 
worthy alliance with the man of sin ; let us be traitors 
to the trust with which God has invested us, to take 
care of the ark of the Lord, and the crown will lose its 
lustre, the peerage its nobility, and the senate its com- 
mand ; all the phases of social rank and order will be 
disjointed and disorganized ; a lava tide of desolation 
will overwhelm all that is consecrated and noble, and 
angels may sing the dirge over a once great, but now 
hopelessly fallen people : " the glory is departed from 
Israel, because the ark of God is taken." Keep fast by 
that ark, hold it — hold your attachment to it as the 
strongest element of being, and there shall be no bounds 
to the sacred magnificence of our nation ; but the fires 



292 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

of the last day, when they consume all that is perishable 
and drossy, may see us with the light of the Divine 
presence gleaming harmlessly around our brow, and in 
our hand the open law for all the nations of mankind. 

Those are temporal benefits. And, then, let there be 
pious men in the land, and spiritual benefits will also 
be secured. There will, for instance, be the defeat of 
erroneous opinions. Truth, when the Spirit inspires it 
not, abstract truth, is weak and powerless. Truth, with 
the Spirit in it, is mighty, and will prevail. There can 
be no fear as to the result, because the world has never 
been left, and will never be left without the active 
Spirit of God. Falsehood breaks out impetuously, just 
like one of those torrents that leap and rattle over the 
summit of the mountain after the thunder-storm, over- 
whelming in the first outbreak, but dying away into 
insignificance and silence by and by ; truth is the little 
spring that rises up imperceptibly and gently, and flows 
on, unostentatious and noiseless, until at last navies are 
wafted on its bosom, and it pours its full volume of 
triumphant waters into the rejoicing sea. So it will be 
with truth ; wealth cannot bribe it, talent cannot dazzle 
it, sophistry cannot overreach it, authority cannot please 
it ; they all, like Felix, tremble in its majestic presence. 
Let pious men increase, and each of them will become 
a centre of holiness ; apostates will be brought back to 
the Church, poor backsliders will be reclaimed into new- 
found liberty and new created privilege, and there will 
be a cry like that on the summit of Carmel after the 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 293 

controversy was over, and had issued in the discomfi- 
ture of Baal, "The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is 
God." 

And, then, better than all that, salvation of souls will 
be secured. The conversion of a soul is an infinitely 
greater triumph than the eradication of a false opinion. 
A false opinion may be crushed, and the man that holds 
it may be in imminent spiritual peril ; convert the man's 
soul, and his opinions will come right by and by. Oh, 
if as you go from this place to-night, you were to be- 
hold the crowds of tempters and temptresses to evil that 
will cross your path as you travel homeward, if you 
think of their activity, of their earnestness to proselytize 
in the grand diabolical army, and to make sevenfold 
more the children of hell than they are themselves, and 
if you think of the apathy of the faithful, of the scanti- 
ness of effort, of the failure of faith, of the depression 
of endeavor, of the laxity of attachment on the part of 
believers in Jesus, surely there is enough to make you 
abashed and confounded. Brethren, I should like, if 
I could, to bring before you one solitary soul, to fasten 
your attention upon that soul, to transfix it as with a 
lightning glance before you, so that you might trace it 
in its downward path, see it as habit crusts it over, and 
selfishness rejoices over it, and the foul fiend gloats 
upon it in mockery, and disease, prematurely induced, 
comes upon it, and death waits for his prey, and hell is 
moved from beneath to meet it at its coming, and that 
you should follow it down into those dark and dread 



294 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

abodes, which man's pencil painteth not, and of which 
man's imagination, thank God, cannot conceive ! Oh ! 
draw the curtain over that ; we cannot bear the sight ! 
But as you think of the real spiritual peril in which not 
one, not a family — Oh ! if there were but a family, all 
London would be awake for its deliverance — but there 
is a world in danger — not one, not a family, not an 
island, not a continent, but a world — if I could only 
fasten that upon your consciences to-night, each one of 
you would surely go away with tearful eye and glad 
heart, glad that you were able to do anything for God, 
and would not rest without saying, " For Zion's sake I 
will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will 
not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as the 
brightness, and the salvation thereof as the lamp that 
burnetii." 

Just one parting word. If you would do all this, you 
must be pious yourselves"; but do not be among the 
number of those who busy themselves in the external- 
isms of godliness, and are in some measure active in 
connection with the Church of God, but are out of 
Christ, aliens themselves from the commonwealth of 
Israel. If you are not personally pious, you will be 
accomplices in drawing down the thunderbolt, and 
chargeable to that extent with your country's ruin, and 
the ruin of souls. Come to Christ now ; let all your 
past iniquity be forgotten and forgiven as you bow 
before him in humiliation and in tears; he will not 
refuse you ; he will not cast you out. Then enter upon 



THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 295 

a life of piety in spite of all that scoffers say. All ! 
religion is not so mean a thing as infidels represent it to 
be ! They curl the lip of scorn at us, and we can bear 
that ; they flash the eye of hate at us, and we can bear 
that, as long as God looks upon us with complacency, 
as long as he has promised to crown us as conquerors in 
heaven, for which, by our spiritual conflicts and vic- 
tories, we shall have come prepared. Oh, it is no mean 
thing. The saint, the righteous man, the pious believer 
in Jesus, is a patriot as well as a saint. The worldling 
may sneer and scorn, but we have a noble revenge, for 
it is pious men that have kept the conflagrating 
elements away from this long doomed world up to the 
present moment of its history ; and if the ten righteous 
had not been in this enormous Sodom, long ere now 
would the firebrand of destruction have struck it that it 
might be consumed in its deserved ruin. Thank God, 
there is hope for the world yet. 

When the prophet in depression and in sorrow was 
saying, " I, even I, only am left, the prophet of the 
Lord," God pointed him to seven thousand that had 
never ^bowed the knee to Baal ; and there are faithful 
ones in the secret places of the world yet, palm-tree 
Christians growing up in unexpected places, amid sandy 
soil and with no companionship, who are flourishing in 
godly vigor and earnest in persevering prayer. There 
is hope for the world yet. Oh, for the increase of these 
pious men ! Be you of the number of this unosten- 
tatious but valiant host. Do you pant for fame ? You 



296 THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION. 

can find it here. Young men, there are some of you in 
the presence of God that have ambition high bounding 
in your hearts, who feel the elasticity of youth within 
you ; who feel that the flight of your soaring spirit is 
not the flight of the flagging or the breathless ; that 
there is something still within you that pants for a 
distinction other than you have yet attained ; oh come 
to Christ, enlist yourselves in his service, be soldiers of 
the cross, fight moral battles, and yours shall be the 
victory. To you the Church is looking ; your fathers, 
worn out with labor, exhausted with the vicissitudes 
and the victories of years, are passing rapidly away, and 
they are wondering where their successors are. They 
have gone from us ; just when we were expecting for 
them higher fields and wider triumphs, the fiery chariot 
came and they were not, and nothing was left for us but 
to cry as we followed the track of the cavalcade, in our 
hopelessness, almost in our agony, " My father, my 
father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." 
Oh ! thank God, they have flung their mantles down, 
and it is for you to catch them, to robe yourselves to-day 
in the garments of the holy departed, and like them, to 
do and die. 



XII. 

THE PKOPHET OF HOEEB— HIS LIEE AND 

ITS LESSONS. 

" Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead." — 
1 Kings, xvii. 1. 

The mountains of the Bible will well repay the 
climber. There is a glorious prospect from their 
summits, and moral bracing in the breathing of their 
difficult air. 

Most of the events in Bible history, which either 
embody great principles, illustrate Divine perfections, 
or bear impressively upon the destinies of man, have 
had the mountains for the pedestals of their achieve- 
ment. Beneath the arch of the Covenant-rainbow the 
lone ark rested upon Ararat ; Abraham's trial, handing- 
down the high faith of the hero-father, and typing the 
greater sacrifice of the future time, must be "on one 
of the mountains" in the land of Moriah; Aaron, 
climbing heavenward, is "unclothed and clothed upon" 
amid the solitudes of Hor; and where but on the crest 
of Nebo could Moses gaze upon the land and die ? If 
there is to be a grand experiment to determine between 
rival faiths — to defeat Baal — to exalt Jehovah, what 

13* 297 



298 

spot so fitting as the excellency of Carmel ? It was due 
to the great and dread events of the Saviour's history 
that they should be enacted where the world's broad 
eye could light upon them, hence he is transfigured 
" on the high mountain apart," on Olivet he prays, on 
Calvary he dies ; and, at the close of all, in the 
splendors of eternal allotment, amid adoring angels 
and perfected men, we cheerfully " come to Mount 
Zion." 

Precious as is the Scripture in all phases of its 
appearance, the quality which, above all others, invests 
it with a richer value, is its exquisite adaptation to 
every necessity of man. Professing itself to be his 
infallible and constant instructor, it employs all modes 
of communicating wisdom. "The Man of our coun- 
sel " is always at hand, in every condition and in 
every peril. Put we learn more from living exemplar 
than from preceptive utterance. The truth, which has 
not been realized by some man of like passions with 
ourselves, comes cold and distant like a lunar rainbow. 
It may furnish us with correct notions and a beautiful 
system, just as we can learn proportion from a statue, 
but there needs the touch of life to influence and to 
transform. Hence, not the least impressive and salu- 
tary Pible teaching is by the accurate exhibition of 
individual character. A man's life is there sketched 
out to us, not that side of it merely which he presents 
to the world, which the restraints of society have modi- 
fied, which intercourse has subdued into decorousness, 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 299 

and which shrouds his meaner self in a conventional 
hypocrisy; but his inner life, his management of the 
trifles which give the sum of character, his ordinary 
and household doings, as well as the rarer seasons of 
exigency and of trial. The whole man is before us, and 
we can see him as he is. Partiality cannot blind us, 
nor prejudice distort our view. Nothing is exagge- 
rated, nothing is concealed. His defects are there — his 
falterings and depressions — his mistrusts and betrayals 
— like so many beacons glaring their warning lights 
upon our path. His excellencies are there — his stern 
integrity and consistent walking, his intrepid wrestling 
and heroic endurance — that we may be followers of his 
patience and faith, and ultimately share his crown. So 
marked and hallowed is this candor, that we do not 
wonder at its being alleged as an argument for the 
book's divinity. The characters are all human in their 
experience, although divine in their portrayal. They 
were men, those Bible worthies, world-renowned, 
God-smitten, princely men, towering indeed in moral, 
as Saul in physical, stature above their fellows, 
but still men of like passions with ourselves — to the 
same frailties incident — with the same trials battling — 
by the same temptations frequently and foully over- 
come. Their perfect humanness is, indeed, their strong- 
est influence and greatest charm. Of what avail to us 
were the biography of an angel, could you chronicle his 
joys in the calm round of heaven ? There could be no 
sympathy either of condition or experience. 



300 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

But the Bible, assuming the essential identity of the 
race, tells of man, and the " one blood " of all nations 
leaps up to the thrilling tale. There is the old narra- 
tive of lapse and loss ; the tidings, ancient and unde- 
caying, of temptation, conflict, mastery, recompense. 
In ourselves there have been the quiverings of David's 
sorrow, and the stirrings of David's sin. "We, perhaps, 
like Elijah, have been by turns confessor and coward — 
fervent as Peter, and as faithless too. The heart 
answers to the history, and responsive and struggling 
humanity owns the sympathy, and derives the bless- 
ing. 

It is a strange history, this history of the Prophet 
Elijah. Throughout the whole of his career we are 
attracted almost more by his inspiration than by him- 
self. "We are apt to lose sight of the man in the 
thought of the Divine energy which wielded him at its 
terrible or .gentle will. The unconsciousness of self, 
which is the distinctive mark of the true seer, is always 
present with him — in his manliest and in his meekest 
hours — in his solitary prayer in the loft at Zarephath, 
in his solemn sarcasm on the summit of Carmel — when 
he flushes the cheek of a dead child, or pales the brow 
of a living king. He is surrendered always to the 
indwelling God. He always seems to regard himself as 
a chosen and a separated man — lifted, by his consecra- 
tion, above the love or the fear of his kind — forced, 
ever and anon, upon difficult and perilous duty — 
a, flying roll, carven with mercy and with judgment — 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 301 

an echo, rather than an original utterance — " the 
voice of one," not "one," but "the voice of one 
crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the 
Lord!" 

How abruptly he bursts upon the world. We know 
nothing of his birth, nothing of his parentage, nothing 
of his training. On all these matters the record is pro- 
foundly silent. He is presented to us at once, a full- 
grown and authoritative man, starting in the path of 
Ahab sudden as the lightning, energetic and alarming 
as the thunder. "Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the 
inhabitants of Gilead." This is all. And it is all we 
need. "What reck we of his ancestry ? He is royal in 
his deeds. Obscure in his origin, springing probably 
from the herdsmen or vine-dressers of Galilee, regarded 
by the men of Tishbe as one of themselves — a little 
reserved and unsocial withal — his person, perhaps, held 
in contempt by the licentious court, and his intrusions 
stigmatized as annoying impertinence, he held on his 
high way notwithstanding, performed stupendous mira- 
cles, received large revelations, and at last, tired of the 
world, went up to heaven in a chariot of fire. How 
often have we seen the main fact of this story realized 
in later times ! Men have looked at the trappings of 
the messenger — not at the import of his message. 
Their faculty of appreciation has been grievously im- 
paired. A prophet has leaped into the day with his 
burden of reproof and truth-telling, but he has not been 
clad in silken sheen, nor a speaker of smooth things. 



302 THE PKOPHET OF HOEEB, 

and the world has gone on to its merchandise, while the 
broken-hearted seer has retired into the wilderness to 
die. A poet has warbled ont his sonl in secret, and 
discoursed most exquisite music — but, alas! it has been 
played among the tombs. A glorious iconoclast has 
come forth among the peoples, " expecting that they 
would have understood how that the Lord by him had 
sent deliverance," but he has been met by the insulting 
rejoinder, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge?" 
Thus, in the days of her nonage, because they lacked 
high estate and lofty lineage, has the world poured con- 
tempt upon some of the choicest of her sons. "A 
heretic !" shouted the furious bigotry of the Inquisition. 
" And yet it moves," said Galileo — resolute, even in the 
moment of enforced abjuration, for the immutable truth. 
A scoffing to Genoese bravos, grandees of Portugal, and 
the court of England, Columbus spied the log of wood 
in its eastward drifting, and opened np America — the 
rich El Dorado of many an ancient dream. " An em- 
piric !" shouted all the Doctor Sangradoes of the time, 
and the old physiologists hated Harvey with an in- 
tensely professional hatred, because he affirmed the cir- 
culation of the blood. "A Bedfordshire tinker!" 
sneered the polite ones, with a whiff of the otto of roses, 
as if the very mention of his craft was infragrant; 
" what has he to do to preach, and write books, and set 
up for a teacher of his fellows?" But glorious John 
Bunyan, leaving them in their own Cabul-country, 
dwelt in the land of Beulah, climbed up straight to the 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 303 

presence of the shining ones, and had " all the trumpets 
sounding for him on the other side." Sidney Smith 
wrote at, and tried to write down "the consecrated 
Cobbler," who was to evangelize India; but William 
Carey shall live embalmed in memories of converted 
thousands long after the witty canon of St. Paul's is for- 
gotten or is remembered only as a melancholy example 
of genius perverted and a vocation mistaken. "A 
Methodist !" -jested the godless witlings of Brazennose ; 
" A Jacobin !" reiterated the makers of silver shrines ; 
" A ringleader in the Gordon Eiots !" said the Komanists 
whose errors he had combated; and the formalistic 
churchmanship of that day gathered up its gentilities, 
smoothed its ruffled fringes, and with a dowager's state- 
liness flounced by " on the other side ;" and reputable 
burghers, the " canny bodies " of the time, subsided into 
their own respectabilities, and shook their heads at 
every mention of the pestilent fellow ; but, calm-browed 
and high-souled, John "Wesley went on until a large 
portion of his world-parish rejoiced in his light, and 
wondered at its luminous and ardent flame. And if it 
be lawful to speak of the Master in the same list as his 
disciples, who, however excellent, fall immeasurably 
short of their Divine Pattern, He was called a ISTazarene, 
and there was the scorn of a world couched in the con- 
temptuous word. 

There are symptoms, however, of returning sanity. 
Judicial ermine and archiepiscopal lawn robing the sons 
of tradesmen, and the blood of all the Montmorencies — 



304 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

fouled by mesalliance with crime — cooling itself in a 
common prison, are remarkable signs of the times. 
Men are beginning to feel conscious, not, perhaps, that 
they have committed a crime, but that they have been 
guilty of what in the diplomacy of Talleyrand was con- 
sidered worse — that is, a blunder. "Whether the chivalry 
of feudalism be extinct or not, there can be no question 
that the villenage of feudalism is gone. Common men 
nowadays question the wisdom of nobilities, correct the 
errors of cabinets, and do not even listen obsequiously 
to catch the whispers of kings. That is a strong and 
growing world-feeling which the poet embodies when 
he sings: 

" Believe us ! noble Vere de Veres, 

From yon blue heavens above us bent, 
The grand old gardener and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe'er it be, it seems to me 

'Tis only noble to be good — 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood." 

Not that rank has lost its prestige, nor royalty its 
honor. Elevated station is a high trust, and furnishes 
opportunity for extensive usefulness. The coronet may 
be honored or despised at the pleasure of the wearer. 
When the rank is larger than the man, when his indi- 
viduality is shrouded behind a hundred coats-of-arms, 
when he has so much of the blood of his ancestors in 
his veins that there is no room for any generous pmses 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 305 

of his own, why, of course, he must find his own level, 
and be content to be admired, like any other piece of 
confectionery, by occasional passers-by ; but when the 
noble remembers his humanity, and has sympathy for 
the erring and encouragement for the sincere — ■ 

" When, all the trappings freely swept away, 
The man's great nature leaps into the day," 

his nobility men are not slow to acknowledge — the cap 
and plume bend very gracefully over the sorrow which 
they succor, and the jewelled hand is blanched into 
a heavenlier whiteness when it beckons a struggling 
people into the power and progress of the coming time. 
The great question which must be asked of any new 
aspirer who would mold the world's activities to his 
will, is not, Whence comes he ? but, What is he ? 
There may be some semi-fossilized relics of the past 
who will continue to insinuate, "Has he a grand- 
father?" But the great world of the earnest and of 
the workers thunders out, " Has he a soul f Has he 
a lofty purpose, a single eye, a heart of power ? Has 
he the prophet's sanctity and inspiration, as well as his 
boldness and fervor % Never mind the bar sinister on 
his escutcheon — has he no bar sinister in his life % Has 
he a giant's strength, a hero's courage, a child's simpli- 
city, an apostle's love, a martyr's will ? Then is he 
sufficiently ennobled." If I, a Gospel charioteer, meet 
him as he essays, trembling, to drive into the world, 
what must be my salutation ? Art thou of noble blood \ 



306 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

Is thy retinue large ? thy banner richly emblazoned ? 
thy speech plausible ? thy purpose fair ? ~No — but " Is 
thy heart right ?" If it be, give me thy hand. 

A prominent feature in the Prophet's character, one 
which cannot fail to impress us at every mention of his 
name, is his singular devotion to the object of his great 
mission. He was sent upon the earth to be the earth's 
monitor of God. This was his life-purpose, and faith- 
fully he fulfilled it. Rising above the temptations of 
sense — ready at the bidding of his Master to crucify 
natural affection — sternly repressing the sensibility 
which might interfere with duty ; trampling 'upon 
worldly interest, and regardless of personal aggrandize- 
ment or safety, he held on his course, unswerving and 
untired, to the end. God was his object in everything ; 
to glorify God, his aim ; to vindicate God, his miracles ; 
to speak for God, his message ; to exhibit God, his life. 
As the rod of Moses swallowed up the symbols of 
Egyptian wizardry, so did this consuming passion in 
Elijah absorb each meaner impulse, and each low de- 
sire. His decision rarely failed him, his consistency 
never. He "halted not between two opinions." He 
spurned alike the adulation of a monarch and of a mob. 
He neither pandered for the favor of a court, nor made 
unworthy compromise with the idolaters of Baal. 
Heaven's high remembrancer, he did a true man's 
work in a true man's way, with one purpose and a 
" united " heart. 

Although many parts of this character cannot, on 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 307 

account of his peculiar vocation, be presented for our 
imitation, in his unity of purpose and of effort he fur- 
nishes us with a noble example. This oneness of prin- 
ciple — freedom from tortuous policy — the direction of 
the energies to the attainment of one worthy end — 
appears to be what is meant in Scripture by the " single 
eye,-' airXovg — not complex— no obliquity in the vision 
— looking straight on — taking in one object at one time. 
And if we look into the lives of the men who have vin- 
dicated their right to be held in the world's memory, 
we shall rind that all their actions evolve from one com- 
prehensive principle, and converge to one magnificent 
achievement. Consider the primitive apostles. There 
you have twelve men, greatly diverse in character, 
cherishing each his own taste and mode of working, 
laboring in different localities, and bringing the one 
Gospel to bear upon different classes of mind, and yet 
everywhere — in proud Jerusalem, inquisitive Ephesus, 
cultured Athens, voluptuous Rome — meeting after many 
years in that mightiest result, the establishment of the 
kingdom of Christ. Much of this issue is of course due 
to the Gospel itself, or rather to the Divine agency 
which applied it, but something also to the unity of 
the messengers, their sincere purpose, and sustained 
endeavor. And so it is in the case of all who have 
been the benefactors of mankind. They have had 
some master-purpose, which has molded all others into 
a beautiful subordination, which they have maintained 
amid hazard and suffering, and which, shrined sacredly 



308 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

in the heart, has influenced and fashioned the life. If 
a man allow within him the play of different or con- 
tradictory purposes, he may, in a lifetime, pile up a 
head of gold, a breast of silver, thighs of brass, and 
feet of clay, but it is but a great image after all. It 
crumbles at the first touch of the smiting stone, and, 
like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, its frag- 
ments are helpless on the wind. If, on the other hand, 
a man's doings grow out of one and the same spirit, 
and that spirit be consecrated to holy endeavor, they 
will interpenetrate and combine into beneficent achieve- 
ment, and stand out a life-giving and harmonious whole. 
This oneness of design for which we contend, is distinct- 
ive of the highest developments of the whole family of 
genius. A book may run through many editions, and 
fascinate many reviewers, but it must be informed by 
one spirit, new correspondences must be revealed to the 
sesthetic eye, and it must appear "in the serene com- 
pleteness of artistic unity," ere it can settle down to be 
a household word in the family, or a hidden treasure in 
the heart. In whatever department " the beauty-mak- 
ing Power" has wrought — in the bodiless thought, or 
in the breathing marble ; in the chef-d'ceuvres of the 
artist, or in the conceptions of the architect ; whether 
Praxiteles chisels, Raffaelle paints, Shakspeare deline- 
ates, or Milton sings — there is the same singleness of 
the animating spirit. Hamlet, Paradise Lost, and Fes- 
tus ; the Greek Slave, and the Madonna ; the Coliseum 
and Westminster Abbey ; are they not, each in its kind, 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 309 

creations to which nothing can be added with advan- 
tage, and from which, without damage, nothing can be 
taken away ? 

And of that other Book — our highest literature, as 
well as our unerring law — the glorious, world-subduing 
Bible, do we not feel the same ? In its case the 
experiment has been tried. The Apociyphal has been 
bound up with the Inspired, like "wood, hay, and 
stubble," loading the rich fret-work of a stately pile, or 
the clumsy work of an apprentice superadded to the 
finish of a master. Doubtless instruction may be 
gathered from it, but how it " pales its ineffectual fires" 
before the splendor of the "Word ! It is unfortunate for 
it that they have been brought into contact. "We 
might be grateful for the gas-lamp at eventide, but it 
were grievous folly to light it up at noon. As in 
science, literature, art, so it is in character. We can 
wrap up in a word the object of " the world's foster 
gods ;" to bear witness for Jehovah — to extend Christ- 
ianity — to disinter the truth for Europe — to " spread 
Scriptural holiness" — to humanize prison discipline — to 
abolish slavery — these are soon told ; but if you unfold 
each word, you have the life-labor of Elijah, Paul, 
Luther, Wesley, Howard, Wilberforce — the inner man 
of each heart laid open, with its hopes, joys, fears, 
anxieties, ventures, faiths, conflicts, triumphs, in the 
long round of weary and of wasting years. 

Look at this oneness of principle embodied in action. 
See it in Martin Luther. He has a purpose, that miner'' s 



310 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

son. That purpose is the acquisition of knowledge. 
He exhausts speedily the resources of Mansfield ; reads 
hard, and devours the lectures at Madgeburg ; chants 
in the hours of recreation, like the old Minnesingers, in 
streets, for bread ; sits at the feet of Trebonius in the 
college at Eisenach ; enters as a student at Erfurt, and 
at the age of eighteen, has outstripped his fellows, has a 
University for his admirer, and professors predicting for 
him the most successful career of the age. He has a 
purpose, that Scholar of Erfurt. That purpose is the 
discovery of truth, for in the old library he has stumbled 
on a Bible. Follow him out into the new world which 
that volume has flashed upon his soul. "With Pilate's 
question on his lip and in his heart, he foregoes his bril- 
liant prospect — parts without a sigh with academical 
distinction — takes monastic vows in an Augustine con- 
vent — becomes the watchman and sweeper of the 
place — goes a mendicant friar, with the convent's 
begging-bag, to the houses where he had been wel- 
comed as a friend, or had starred it as a lion — wastes 
himself with, voluntary penances well-nigh to the 
grave — studies the Fathers intensely, but- can get no 
light — pores over the Book itself, with scales upon his 
eyes — catches a dim streak of auroral brightness, but 
leaves Erfurt before the glorious dawn — until at last, in 
his cell at Wittemberg, on his bed of languishing at 
Bologna, and finally at Borne — Pilate's question an- 
swered upon Pilate's stairs — there comes the thrice- 
repeated Gospel-whisper, " The just shall live by faith," 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 3H 

and the glad Evangel scatters the darkening and shreds 
off the paralysis, and he rises into moral freedom, a new 
man unto the Lord ! He has a purpose, that Augustine 
monk. That purpose is the [Reformation ! Waiting 
with the modesty of the hero, until he is forced into the 
strife, with the courage of the hero he steps into the 
breach to do battle for the living truth. Tardy in 
forming his resolve, he is brave in his adhesion to it. 
Not like Erasmus, " holding the truth in unrighteous- 
ness," with a clear head and a craven heart — not like 
Carlstadt, hanging upon a grand principle the tatters 
of a petty vanity— not like Seckingen, a wielder of car- 
nal weapons, clad in glowing mail, instead of the armor 
of righteousness and the weapon of ail prayer — but 
bold, disinterested, spiritual — he stands before us God- 
prepared and God-upheld' — that valiant Luther, who, in 
his opening prime, amazed the Cardinal de Yio by his 
fearless avowal, " Had I five heads I would lose them 
all rather than retract the testimony which I have 
borne for Christ " — that incorruptible Luther, whom the 
Pope's nuncio tried in vain to bribe, and of whom he 
wrote in his spleen : " This German beast has no regard 
for gold " — that inflexible Luther, who, when told that 
the fate of John Huss would probably await him at 
Worms, said calmly, " Were they to make a fire that 
would extend from Worms to Wittemberg, and reach 
even to the sky, I would walk across it in the name of 
the Lord" — that triumphant Luther, who, in his 
honored age, sat in the cool shadow and 'mid the 



312 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

purple vintage of the tree himself had planted, and 
after a stormful sojourn, scaped the toils of the hunters, 
and died peacefully in his bed — that undying Luther, 
" who, being dead, yet speaketh," the mention of whose 
name rouses the ardor of the manly, and quickens the 
pulses of the free ; whose spirit yet stirs, like a clarion, 
the great heart of Christendom ; and whose very bones 
have so marvellous a virtue, that, like the bones of 
Elisha, if on them were stretched the corpse of an effete 
Protestantism, they would surely wake it into life to the 
honor and glory of God ! 

But we must not forget, as we are in some danger of 
doing, that we must draw our illustrations mainly from 
the life of Elijah. ¥e have before affirmed that unity 
of purpose and consistency of effort were leading 
features in his character, but look at them in action, 
especially as displayed in the great scene of Carmel. 
Call up that scene before you, with all its adjuncts of 
grandeur and of power. The summit of the fertile 
hill, meet theatre for so glorious a tragedy ; the idola- 
trous priests, with all the pompous ensigns of their idol- 
worship, confronted by that solitary but princely man — 
the gathered and anxious multitude — the deep silence 
following on the prophet's question — the appeal to fire 
— the protracted invocation of Baal — the useless incan- 
tations and barbaric rites, " from morning even until 
noon, and from noon until the time of the offering of 
the evening sacrifice ;" the solemn sarcasm of Elijah ; 
the building of the altar of unfurnished stone — the 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 313 

drenching and surrounding it with water, strangest of 
all strange preparations for a burnt-sacrifice — the sky 
reddening as if it blushed at the folly of the priests of 
Baal — the sun sloping slowly to the west, and falling 
aslant upon the pale faces of that unweary multitude, 
rapt in fixed attention, patient, stern, unhungering — the 
high accents of holy prayer — the solemn pause, agon- 
izing from its depth of feeling — the falling flame, " a 
fire of intelligence and power" — the consuming of all 
the materials of the testimony — and that mighty 
triumph-shout, rolling along the plain of Sharon, 
waking the echoes of the responsive mountains, and 
thrilling over the sea with an eloquence grander than 
its own ; there it stands — that scene in its entireness — 
most wonderful even in a history of wonders, and one 
of the most magnificent and conclusive forthputtings of 
Jehovah's power! But abstract your contemplations 
now from the miraculous interposition, and look at the 
chief actor in the scene. How calm he is ! How still 
amid that swaying multitude ! They, agitated by a 
thousand emotions — he, self-reliant, patient, brave ! 
Priests mad with malice — people wild in wonder — an 
ominous frown darkening the royal brow — Elijah alone 
unmoved ! Whence this self-possession ? What occult 
principle so mightily sustains him? There was, of 
course, unfaltering dependence upon God. But there 
was also the consciousness of integrity of purpose, and 
of a heart " at one." There was no recreancy in the 

soul. He had not been the passive observer, nor the 

14 



314 THE PROPHET -OF HOREB, 

guilty conniver at sin. He had not trodden softly, lest 
he should shock Ahab's prejudices or disturb his repose. 
He had not shared in the carnivals of Jezebel's table. 
He had not preserved a dastardly neutrality. Every 
one knew him to be " on the Lord's side." His heart 
was always in tune ; like Memnon's harp, it trembled 
into melody at every breath of heaven. 

With these examples before us, it behooves lis to ask 
ourselves, Have we a purpose f Elijah and Luther may 
be marks too high for us. Do not let us affect knight- 
errantry, couch the lance at wind-mills to prove our 
valor, or mistake sauciness for sanctity, and impudence 
for inspiration. It is not probable that our mission is 
to beard unfaithful royalties, or to pull down the 
edifices which are festooned with the associations of 
centuries. But in the sphere of each of us — in the 
marts of commerce, in the looms of labor — while the 
sun is climbing hotly up the sky, and the race of 
human pursuits and competitions is going vigorously 
on, there is work enough for the sincere and honest 
workman. The sphere for personal improvement was 
never so large. To brace the body for service or for 
suffering — to bring it into subjection -to the control of 
the master-faculty — to acquaint the mind with all 
wisdom — to hoard, with miser's care, every fragment 
of beneficial knowledge — to twine the beautiful around 
the true, as the acanthus leaf around the Corinthian 
pillar — to quell the sinward propensities of the nature 
•~— to evolve the soul into the completeness of its moral 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 315 

manhood — to have the passions in harness, and firmly 
curb them — " to bear the image of the heavenly " — to 
strive after " that mind which was also in Christ Jesus" 
— here is a field of labor wide enough for the most 
resolute will. The sphere of beneficent activity was 
never so large. To infuse the leaven of purity into the 
disordered masses — to thaw the death-frost from the 
heart of the misanthrope — to make the treacherous one 
faithful to duty — to open the world's dim eye to the 
majesty of conscience — to gather and instruct the or- 
phans bereft of a father's blessing and of a mother's 
prayer — to care for the outcast and abandoned, who 
have drunk in iniquity with their mother's milk, whom 
the priest and the Levite have alike passed by, and who 
have been forced in the hotbed of poverty into prema- 
ture luxuriance of evil ; here is labor, which may 
employ a man's whole lifetime, and his whole soul. 
Young men, are you working ? Have you gone forth 
into the harvest-field bearing precious seed ? Alas ! 
perhaps some of you are yet resting in the conven- 
tional, that painted charnel which has tombed many a 
manhood ; grasping eagerly your own social advan- 
tages ; gyved by a dishonest expediency ; not doing a 
good lest it should be evil spoken of, nor daring a faith 
lest the scoffer should frown. With two worlds to 
work in — the world of the heart, with its many-phased 
and wondrous life, and the world around, with its 
problems waiting for solution, and its contradictions 
panting for the harmonizer — you are, perhaps, en- 



316 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

chained in the island of Calypso, thralled by its 
blandishments, emasculated by its enervating air. O, 
for some strong-armed Mentor to thrust you over the 
cliff, and strain with you among the buffeting waves ! 
Brothers, let us be men. Let us bravely fling off our 
chains. If we can not be commanding, let us at least 
be sincere. Let our earnestness amend our incapacity. 
Let ours not be a life of puerile inanities or obsequious 
Mammon-worship. Let us look through the pliant 
neutral in his hollowness, and the churlish miser in his 
greed, and let us go and do otherwise than they. Let 
us not be ingrates while Heaven is generous, idlers 
while earth is active, slumberers while eternity is near. 
Let us have a purpose, and let that purpose be one. 
Without a central principle all will be in disorder. 
Ithaca is misgoverned, Penelope beset by clamorous 
suitors, Telemachus in peril, all because Ulysses is 
away. Let the Ulysses of the soul return, let the 
governing principle exert its legitimate authority, and 
the happy suitors of appetite and sense shall be slain — 
the heart, married to the truth, shall retain its fidelity 
to its bridalvow, and the eldest-born, a purpose of 
valor and of wisdom, shall carve its highway to renown, 
and achieve its deeds of glory. Aim at this singleness 
of eye. Abhor a life of self-contradictions, as a 
grievous wrong done to an immortal nature. And 
thus, having a purpose — one purpose — a worthy pur- 
pose—you cannot toil in vain. Work in the inner— it 
will tell upon the outer world. Purify your own heart 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 317 

— you will have a reformative power on the neighbor- 
hood. Shrine the truth within — it will attract many 
pilgrims. Kindle the vestal iire — it will ray out a life- 
giving light. Have the mastery over your own spirit — 
you will go far to be a world-subduer. Oh, if there be 
one here whowould up lift himself or advance his 
fellows, who would do his brother " a good which shall 
live after him," or enroll himself among the bene- 
factors of mankind, to him we say, Cast out of thyself 
all that loveth and maketh a lie — hate every false way 
— set a worthy object before thee — work at it with both 
hands, an open heart, an earnest will, and a firm faith, 
and then go on — 

"Onward, while a wrong remains 

To be conquered by the right, 
While Oppression lifts a finger 

To affront us by his might. 
While an error clouds the reason, 

Or a sorrow gnaws the heart, 
Or a slave awaits his freedom, 

Action is the wise man's part!" 

The Prophet's consistency of purpose, his calmness in 
the time of danger, and his marvellous success, require, 
however, some further explanation, and that explanation 
is to be found in the fact that he was a man of prayer. 
Prayer was the forerunner of his every action — the 
grace of supplication prepared him for his mightiest 
deeds. Whatever was his object — to seal or to open the 
fountains of heaven — to evoke the obedient fire on Car- 



318 THE PROPHET. OF HOEEB, 

mel — to shed joy over the bereft household of the 
Sareptan widow — to bring down " forks of flame " upon 
the captains and their fifties — there was always the 
solemn and the earnest prayer. Tishbe, Zarephath, 
Carmel, Jezreel, Gilgal — he had his oratory in them all. 
And herein lay the secret of his strength. The monn 
tain-closet emboldened him for the mountain-altar. 
While the winged birds were providing for his body, the 
winged prayers were strengthening his soul. In answer 
to his entreaties in secret, the whole armor of God was 
at his service, and he buckled the breastplate, and 
braced the girdle, and strapped on the sandals, and 
stepped forth from his closet a hero, and men knew that 
he had been in Jehovah's presence-chamber from the 
glory which lingered on his brow. 

!Nbw, as man is to be contemplated, not only in re- 
ference to time, but in reference to eternity, this habit 
of prayer is necessary to the completeness of his charac- 
ter. If the present were his all — if his life were to shape 
itself only amid surrounding complexities of good or 
evil — if he had merely to impress his individuality upon 
his age, and then die and be forgotten, or in the veiled 
future have no living and conscious concern ; then, in- 
deed, self-confidence might be his highest virtue, self- 
will his absolute law, self-aggrandizement his supremest 
end. But as, beyond the present, there lies, in all its 
solemness, eternity ; as the world to which we are all 
hastening is a world of result, discovery, fruition, recom- 
pense ; as an impartial register chronicles our lives, that 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 3{9 

a righteous retribution may follow, our dependence 
upon God must be felt and recognized, and there must 
be some medium through which to receive the com- 
munications of his will. This medium is furnished to 
us in prayer. It has been ordained by himself as a 
condition of strength and blessing, and all who are under 
his authority are under binding obligations to pray. 

Young men, you have been exhorted to aspire. Self- 
reliance has been commended to you as a grand element 
of character. We would echo these counsels. They 
are counsels of wisdom. But to be safe and to be per- 
fect, you must connect with them the spirit of prayer. 
Emulation, unchastened by any higher principle, is to 
our perverted nature very often a danger and an evil. 
The love of distinction, not of truth and right, becomes 
the master-passion of the soul, and instead of high-reach- 
ing labor after good, there comes Yanity with its paro- 
dies of excellence, or mad Ambition shrinking from no 
enormity in its cupidity or lust of power. Self-reliance, 
in a heart unsanctified, often gives place to Self-confi- 
dence, its base-born brother. Under its unfriendly rule 
there rise up in the soul over-weening estimate of self, 
inveteracy of evil habit, impatience of restraint or con- 
trol, the disposition to lord it over others, and that 
dogged and repulsive obstinacy, which, like the dead 
fly in the ointment, throws an ill savor over the entire 
character of the man. These are smaller manifestations, 
but, in congenial soil, and with commensurate oppor- 
tunities, it blossoms out into some of the worst forms of 



320 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

humanity — the ruffian, who is the terror of his neighbor- 
hood ; the tyrant, who has an appetite for blood ; the 
atheist, who denies his God. Now, the habit of prayer 
will afford to these principles the salutary check which 
they need. It will sanctify emulation, and make it a 
virtue to aspire. It will curb the excesses of ambition, 
and keep down the vauntings of unholy pride. The 
man will aim at the highest, but in the spirit of the 
lowest, and prompted by the thought of immortality — 
not the loose immortality of the poet's dream, but the 
substantial immortality of the Christian's hope — he will 
travel on to his reward. In like manner will the habit 
of prayer chasten and consecrate the principle of self- 
reliance. It will preserve, intact, all its enterprise and 
bravery. It will bate not a jot of its original strength 
and freedom, but, when it would wanton out into inso- 
lence and pride, it will restrain it by the consciousness 
of a higher power ; it will shed over the man the meek- 
ness and gentleness of Christ, and it will show, existing 
in the same nature and in completest harmony, indomit- 
able courage in the arena of the world, and loyal sub- 
mission to the authority of Heaven. Many noble 
examples have attested how this inner life of heaven — 
combining the heroic and the gentle, softening without 
enfeebling the character, preparing either for action or 
endurance — has shed its power over the outer life of 
earth. How commanding is the attitude of Paul from 
the time of his conversion to the truth ! What courage 
he has, encountering the Epicurean and Stoical philoso- 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 321 

phers, revealing the unknown God to the multitude at 
Athens, making the false-hearted Felix tremble, and 
almost constraining the pliable Agrippa to decision; 
standing, silver-haired and solitary, before the bar of 
Nero ; dying a martyr for the loved name of Jesus ! — 
that heroism was born in the solitude where he im- 
portunately " besought the Lord." " In Luther's closet," 
says D'Aubigne, " we have the secret of the Reforma- 
tion." The Puritans — those " men of whom the world 
was not worthy" — to whom we owe immense, but 
scantily-acknowledged, obligations — how kept they their 
fidelity ? Tracked through wood and wild, the baying 
of the fierce sleuth-hound breaking often upon their 
sequestered worship, their prayer was the talisman 
which " stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the 
violence of fire." You cannot have forgotten how 
exquisitely the efficacy of prayer is presented in our 
second book of Proverbs : 

" Behold that fragile form of delicate, transparent beauty, 
Whose light-blue eye and hectic cheek are lit by the bale-fires of 

decline ; 
Hath not thy heart said of her, Alas ! poor child of weakness ! 
Thou hast erred ; Goliath of Gath stood not in half her strength : 
For the serried ranks of evil are routed by the lightning of her eye ; 
Seraphim rally at her side, and the captain of that host is God, 
For that weak, fluttering heart is strong in faith assured — 
Dependence is her might, and behold — she prayeth." * 

Desolate, indeed, is the spirit, like the hills of Gilboa, 

* Tupper's " Proverbial Philosophy," of Prayer, p. 109. 
14* 



322 

reft of the precious things of heaven, if it never prays. 
Do you pray? Is the fire burning upon that secret 
altar ? Do you go to the closet as a duty ? linger in it 
as a privilege ? What is that you say ? There is a 
scoffer in the same place of business with you, and he 
tells you it is cowardly to bow the knee, and he jeers 
you about being kept in leading-strings, and urges you 
to avow your manliness, and as he is your room-mate, 
you have been ashamed to pray before him ; and, 
moreover, he seems so cheerful, and resolute, and brave, 
that his words have made some impression ? What ! 
he brave ? He who gave up the journey the other day 
because he lucklessly discovered it was Friday; he who 
lost his self-possession at the party because "the salt 
was spilt — to him it fell ;" he who, whenever friends 
solicit and the tempter plies, is afraid to say no; he 
who dares not for his life look into his own heart, for he 
fancies it a haunted house, with goblins perched on 
every landing to pale the cheek and blench the 
courage ; he a brave man ? Oh ! to your knees, young 
man ; to your knees, that the cowardice may be for- 
given and forgotten. There is no bravery in blas- 
phemy, there is no dastardliness in godly fear. It is 
prayer which strengthens the weak, and makes the 
strong man stronger. Happy are you, if it is your 
habit and your privilege. You can offer it anywhere. 
In the crowded mart or busy street ; flying along the 
gleaming line ; sailing upon the wide waters ; out in the 
broad world ; in the strife of sentiment and passion ; in 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 323 

the whirlwind of battle ; at the festival and at the 
funeral ; if the frost braces the spirit or the fog 
depresses it ; if the clouds are heavy on the earth, or 
the sunshine fills it with laughter ; when the dew is 
damp upon the grass, or when the lightning flashes in 
the sky; in the matins of sunrise or the vespers of 
nightfall ; let but the occasion demand it, let the need 
be felt, let the soul be imperilled, let the enemy threaten, 
happy are you, for you can pray. 

"We learn from the prophet's history that God's dis- 
cipline for usefulness is frequently a discipline of 
trouble. His enforced banishment to the brook Cherith ; 
his struggles in that solitude, with the unbelief which 
would fear for the daily sustenance, and with the sel- 
fishness which would fret and pine for the activities of 
life ; Ahab's bloodthirsty and eager search for him, of 
which he would not fail to hear ; Jezebel's subsequent 
and bitterer persecution ; the apparent failure of his 
endeavors for the reformation of Israel ; the forty days' 
fasting in the wilderness of Horeb — all these were 
parts of one grand disciplinary process, by which he 
was made ready for the Lord, fitted for the triumph on 
Carmel, for the still voice on the mountain, and for the 
ultimate occupancy of the chariot of fire. It is a bene- 
ficent arrangement of Providence, that " the divinity 
which shapes our ends " weaves our sorrows into ele- 
ments of character, and that all the disappointments and 
conflicts to which the living are subject — the afflictions, 
physical and mental, personal and relative, which are 



324 THE PROPHET OF HOREB. 

the common lot — may, rightly used, become means of 
improvement, and create in us sinews of strength. 
Trouble is a marvellous mortifier of pride, and an 
effectual restrainer of self-will. Difficulties string up 
the energies to loftier effort, and intensity is gained 
from repression. By sorrow the temper is mellowed, 
and the feeling is refined. When suffering has broken 
up the soil, and made the furrows soft, there can be 
implanted the hardy virtues which out-brave the storm. 
In short, trial is God's glorious alchemistry, by which 
the dross is left in the crucible, the baser metals are 
transmuted, and the character is riched with the gold. 
It would be easy to multiply examples of the singular 
efficacy of trouble as a course of discipline. Look at 
the history of God's chosen people. A king arose in 
Egypt " which knew not Joseph," and his harsh 
tyranny drove the Hebrews from their land of Goshen, 
and made them the serfs of an oppressive bondage. 
The iron entered into their souls. For years they 
remained in slavery, until in his own good time God 
arose to their help, and brought them out " with a high 
hand and with a stretched-out arm." We do not 
mean, of all things, to make apologies for Pharaoh and 
his task-masters, but we do mean to say that that bond- 
age was, in many of its results, a blessing, and that the 
Israelite, building the treasure-cities, and, perhaps, the 
Pyramids, was a very different and a very superior 
being to the Israelite, inexperienced and ease-loving, 
who fed his flocks in Goshen. God overruled that cap- 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 325 

tivity, and made it the teacher of many important les- 
sons. They had been hitherto a host of families ; they 
were to be exalted into a nation. There was to be a 
transition effected from the simplicity of the patriarchal 
government and clanship to the superb theocracy of the 
Levitical economy. Egypt was the school in which 
they were to be trained for Canaan, and in Egypt they 
were taught, although reluctant and indocile learners, 
the forms of -civil government, the theory of subordina- 
tion and order, and the arts and habits of civilized life. 
Hence, when God gave his laws on Sinai, those laws fell 
upon the ears of a prepared people ; even in the desert 
they could fabricate the trappings of the temple service, 
and engrave the mystic characters upon the " gems* 
oracular" which flashed upon the breastplate of the 
High Priest of God. The long exile in the wilderness 
of Midian was the chastening by which Moses was 
instructed, and the impetuosity of his temper mellowed 
and subdued, so that he who, in his youthful hatred of 
oppression, slew the Egyptian, became in his age the 
meekest man, the much-enduring and patient lawgiver. 
A very notable instance of the influence of difficulty and 
failure in rousing the energies and carrying them on to 
success, has been furnished in our own times. Of 
course we refer to this case in this one aspect only, 
altogether excluding any expression as to the merit or 
demerit of the man. There will probably be two 
opinions about him, and those widely differing, in this 
assembly. We are not presenting him as an example, 



326 THE PUOPHET OF HOKEB, 

but as an illustration — save in the matter of steady and 
persevering purpose — and in this, if lie be even an oppo- 
nent, Fas est ab hoste doceri. 

In the year 1837, a young member, oriental alike in 
his lineage and in his fancy, entered Parliament, chi- 
valrously panting for distinction in that intellectual 
arena. He was already known as a successful three- 
volnmer, and his party were ready to hail him as a 
promising auxiliary. Under these auspices he rose to 
make his maiden speech. But he had made a grand 
mistake. He had forgotten that the figures of St. 
Stephen's are generally arithmetical, and that super- 
fluity of words, except in certain cases, is regarded as 
superfluity of naughtiness. He set out with the inten- 
tion to dazzle, but country gentlemen object to be 
dazzled, save on certain conditions. They must be 
allowed to prepare themselves for the shock, they must 
have due notice beforehand, and the operation must be 
performed by an established parliamentary favorite. 
In this case all these conditions were wanting. The 
speaker was a parvenu. He took them by surprise, 
and he pelted them with tropes like hail. Hence he 
had not gone far before there were signs of impatience ; 
by and by the ominous cry of " Question," then came 
some parliamentary extravagance, met by derisive 
cheers ; cachinnatory symptoms began to develop them- 
selves, until, at last, in the midst of an imposing sen- 
tence, in which he had carried his audience to the 
Yatican, and invested Lord John Russell with the 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 327 

temporary custody of the keys of St. Peter, the mirth 
grew fast and furious ; somnolent squires woke up and 
joined in sympathy, and the house resounded with 
irrepressible peals of laughter. Mortified and indig- 
nant, the orator sat down, closing with these memorable 
words : " I sit down now, but the time will come when 
you will hear me !" In the mortification of that night, 
we doubt not, was born a resolute working for the 
fulfillment of those words. It was an arduous struggle. 
There were titled claimants for renown among his com- 
petitors, and he had to break down the exclusivism. 
There was a suspicion of political adventuring at work, 
and broadly circulated, and he had this to overcome. 
Above all, he had to live down the remembrance of his 
failure. But there was the consciousness of power, and 
the fall which would have crushed the coward made 
the brave man braver. "Warily walking, and steadily 
toiling, through the chance of years, seizing the oppor- 
tunity as it came, and always biding his time, he 
climbed upward to the distant summit, prejudice 
melted like snow beneath his feet, and in 1852, fifteen 
short years after his apparent annihilation, he was in 
her Majesty's Privy Council, styling himself Eight 
Honorable, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of 
the British House of Commons. 

Sirs, are there difficulties in your path, hindering 
your pursuit of knowledge, restraining your benevolent 
endeavor, making your spiritual life a contest and a 
toil? Be thankful for them. They will test your 



328 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

capabilities of resistance. You will be impelled to 
persevere from the very energy of the opposition. If 
there be any might in your soul, like the avalanche of 
snow, it will require additional momentum from the 
obstacles which threaten to impede it. Many a man 
has thus robed himself in the spoils of a vanquished 
difficulty, and his conquests have accumulated at every 
onward and upward step, until he has rested from his 
labor — the successful athlete who has thrown the world. 
a An unfortunate illustration," you are ready to say, 
" for all cannot win the Olympic crown, nor wear the 
Isthmian laurel. "What of him who fails ? How is he 
recompensed? What does he gain?" What? Why, 
Strength for Life. His training has insured him that. 
He will never forget the gymnasium and its lessons. 
He will always be a stalwart man, a man of muscle 
and of sinew. The real merit is not in the success, 
but in the endeavor, and, win or lose, he will be 
honored and crowned. 

It may be that the sphere of some of you is that of 
endurance rather than of enterprise. You are not 
called to aggress, but to resist. The power to work has 
reached its limit for a while ; the power to wait must 
be exerted. There are periods in our history when 
Providence shuts us up to the exercise of faith, when 
patience and fortitude are more valuable than valor and 
courage, and when any "further struggle would but 
defeat our prospects and embarrass our aims." To 
resist the powerful temptation ; to overcome the beset- 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 329 

ting sin ; to restrain the sudden impulse of anger ; to 
keep sentinel over the door of the lips, and turn back 
the biting sarcasm, and the word unkind ; to be patient 
under unmerited censure ; amid opposing friends, and a 
scoffing world, to keep the faith high and the purpose 
firm ; to watch through murky night and howling storm 
for the coming day ; in these cases, to be still is to be 
brave ; what Burke has called a " masterly inactivity " 
is our highest prowess, and quietude is the part of hero- 
ism. There is a young man in business, battling with 
some strong temptation, by which he is vigorously 
assailed; he is solicited to engage in some unlawful 
undertaking, with the prospect of immediate and lucra- 
tive returns. Custom pleads prescription : " It is done 
every day." Partiality suggests that so small a devia- 
tion will never be regarded — " Is it not a little one ?" 
Interest reminds him that by his refusal his " craft will 
be in danger." Compromise is sure that " when he 
bows himself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord will 
pardon his servant in this thing." All these fearful 
voices are urging his compliance. But the Abdiel- 
conscience triumphs — help is invoked where it can 
never be invoked in vain, and he spurns the temptation 
away. Is he not a hero % Earth may despise such a 
victory, but he can afford that scorning when, on 
account of him, "there is joy in heaven." Oh, there 
are, day by day, vanishing from the world's presence, 
those of whom she wotteth not; whose heritage has 
been a heritage of suffering ; who, in the squalors of 



330 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

poverty, have gleaned a hallowed chastening; from 
whom the fires of sickness have scaled their earthliness 
away, and they have grown up into such transcendent 
and archangel beauty, that Death, God's eagle, sweeps 
them into heaven. Murmur not, then, if, in the 
inscrutable allotments of Providence, you are called to 
suffer, rather than to do. There is a time to labor, and 
there is a time to refrain. The completeness of the 
Christian character consists in energetic working, when 
working is practicable, and in submissive waiting, when 
waiting is necessary. You believe that beyond the 
waste of waters there is a rich land to be discovered, 
and, like Columbus, you have manned the vessel and 
hopefully set sail. But your difficulties are increasing. 
The men's hearts are failing them for fear; they wept 
when you got out of sight of land; the distance is 
greater than you thought : there is a weary and unva- 
ried prospect of only sky and sea ; you have not spoken 
a ship nor exchanged a greeting; your crew are becom- 
ing mutinous, and brand you mad; officers and men 
crowd round you, savagely demanding return. Move 
not a hair's breadth. Command the craven spirits to 
their duty. Bow them before the grandeur of your 
courage, and the triumph of your faith : 

" Hushing every muttered murmur, 
Let your fortitude the firmer 

Gird your soul with strength ; 
While, no treason near her lurking, 
Patience in her perfect working, 
Shall be queen at length." 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 331 

Ha ! "What is it ? What says the watcher ? Land in 
the distance ! No ; not yet — but there's a hopeful fra- 
grance in the breeze ; the sounding-line gives shallower 
and yet shallower water ; the tiny land-birds flutter 
round, venturing on timid wing to give their joyous 
welcome. Spread the canvas to the wind ; by and by 
there shall be the surf-wave on the strand ; the summits 
of the land of promise visible; the flag flying at the 
harbor's mouth, and echoing from grateful hearts and 
manly voices, the swelling spirit-hymn, " So he bringeth 
us to our desired haven." 

We are taught by the Prophet's history the evil of 
undue disquietude about the aspect of the times. The 
followers of Baal had been stung to madness by their 
defeat on Carmel, and Jezebel, their patroness, mourn- 
ing over her slaughtered priests, swore by her idol-gods 
that she would have the Prophet's life for theirs. On 
this being reported to Elijah, he seems to be paralyzed 
with fear, all his former confidence in God appears to 
be forgotten, and the remembrance of the mighty de- 
liverances of the past fails to sustain him under the 
pressure of this new trial. Such is poor human nature. 
He before whom the tyrant Ahab had quailed — he 
whose prayer had suspended the course of nature, and 
sealed up the fountains of heaven ; he who, in the face 
of all Israel, had confronted and conquered eight hun- 
dred and fifty men — terrified at the threat of an angry 
woman, flees in precipitation and in terror, and, hope- 
less for the time of his own safety, and of the success of 



332 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

his endeavors for the good of Israel, wanders off into the 
wilderness, and sighs forth his feelings in the peevish 
and melancholy utterance : Let me die. " It is enough 
— now, O Lord God, take away my life, for I am no 
better than my fathers." This desertion of duty, failure 
of faith, sudden cowardice, unwarranted despondency, 
petulance, and murmuring, are characteristics of modern 
no less than ancient days. There is one class of observ- 
ers, indeed, who are not troubled with any disquietude ; 
to whom all wears the tint of the rose-light, and who 
are disposed to regard the apprehensions of their soberer 
neighbors as dyspeptic symptoms, or as incipient hypo- 
chondriacism. Whenever the age is mentioned, they go 
off in an ecstasy. They are like the Malvern patients, 
of whom Sir Lytton Bulwer tells, who, after having 
made themselves extempore mummies in the " pack," 
and otherwise undergone their matutinal course of hy- 
dropathy, are so intensely exhilarated, and have such 
an exuberance of animal spirits, that they are obliged 
to run a considerable distance for the sake of working 
themselves off. Their volubility of praise is extraordi- 
nary, and it is only when they are thoroughly out of 
breath, that you have the chance to edge in a syllable. 
They tell us that the age is " golden," auriferous in all 
its developments, transcending all others in immediate 
advantage and in auguries of future good. We are 
pointed to the kindling love of freedom, to the quick- 
ened onset of inquiry, to the stream of legislation broad- 
ening as it flows, to the increase of hereditary mind, to 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 333 

the setting further and further back of the old land- 
marks of improvement, and to the inclosure of whole 
acres of intellectual and moral waste, thought formerly 
not worth the tillage. We would not for one moment 
be understood to undervalue these and other signs, 
equally and yet more encouraging. On the other hand, 
though no alarmists, we would not be insensible to the 
fears of those who tell us that we are in danger ; that 
our liberty, of which we boast ourselves, is strangely 
like licentiousness ; that our intellectual eminence may 
prove practical folly ; that our liberality verges on in- 
difTerentism ; and that our chiefest dignity is our yet- 
unhumbled pride, that §pQvr\\ia oapub^ which, in all its 
varieties, and in all its conditions, is " enmity against 
God." A very cursory glance at the state of things 
around us will suffice to show that with the dawn of a 
brighter day there are blent some gathering clouds. 

Amid those who have named the Master's name, 
there is much which calls for caution and for warning. 
Political strife, fierce and absorbing, leading the mind 
off from the realities of its own condition ; a current of 
worldly conformity setting in strongly upon the churches 
of the land ; the ostentation and publicity of religious 
enterprises prompting to the neglect of meditation and 
of secret prayer ; sectarian bitterness in its sad and 
angry developments ; the multiform and lamentable 
exhibitions of practical Antinomianism which abound 
among us — all these have, in their measure, prevented 
the fulfillment of the Church's mission in the world. 



334 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

If you look outside the pale of the churches, viewed 
from a Christian stand-point, the aspect is somewhat 
alarming. Crime does not diminish. The records of 
our offices of police and of our courts of justice are 
perfectly appalling. Intemperance, like a mighty gulf- 
stream, drowns its thousands. The Sabbath is system- 
atically desecrated, and profligacy yet exerts its power 
to fascinate and to ruin souls. And then, deny it as 
we will, there is the engrossing power of Mammon. 
Covetousness — the sin of the heart, of the Church, of 
the world — is found everywhere ; lurking in the guise 
of frugality, in the poor man's dwelling; dancing in 
the shape of gold-fields and Australia before the flat- 
tered eye of youth ; shrined in the marts of the busy 
world, receiving the incense and worship of the traders 
in vanity; arrayed in purple, and faring sumptuously 
every day, in the mansion of Dives ; twining itself 
round the pillars of the sanctuary of God ; it is the 
great world-emperor still, swaying an absolute author- 
ity, with legions of subordinate vices to watch its nod, 
and to perform its bidding. 

Then, besides this iniquity of practical ungodliness, 
there is also the iniquity of theoretical opinion. There 
is Popery, that antiquated superstition, which is coming 
forth in its decrepitude, rouging over its wrinkles, and 
flaunting itself, as it used to do in its well-remembered 
youth. There are the various ramifications of the 
subtile spirit of Unbelief: Atheism, discarding its former 
audacity of blasphemy, assuming now a modest garb 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 



335 



and mendicant whine, asking our pity for its idiosyn- 
crasy, bewailing its misfortune in not being able to 
believe that there is a God; Nationalism, whether in 
the transcendentalism of Hegel, or in the allegorizing 
impiety of Strauss, or in the pantheistic philosophy of 
Fichte, eating out the heart of the Gospel, into which 
its vampire-fangs have fastened ; Latitudinarianism on 
a sentimental journey in search of the religious instinct, 
doling out its- equal and niggard praise to it wherever 
it is found, in Fetichism, Thuggism, Mohammedanism, or 
Christianity ; that species of active and high-sounding 
skepticism, which, for want of a better name, we may 
call a Credophobia, which selects the confessions and 
catechisms as the objects of its especial hostility, and 
which, knowing right well that if the banner is down, 
the courage fails, and the army will be routed or slain, 
" furious as a wounded bull, runs tearing at the creeds ;" 
these, with all their off-shots and dependencies (for their 
name is Legion) grouped under the generic style of Infi- 
delity, have girt themselves for the combat, and are 
asserting and endeavoring to establish their empire over 
the intellects and consciences of men. And as this 
spirit of Unbelief has many sympathies with the spirit 
of Superstition, they have entered into unholy alliance 
— "Herod and Pilate have been made friends to- 
gether" — and hand joined in hand, they are arrayed 
against the truth of God. Oh, rare John Bunyan! 
Was he not among the prophets ? Listen to his descrip- 
tion of the last army of Diabolus before the final 



33(5 THE PKOPHET OF HOKEB, 

triumph of Immanuel : " Ten thousand Doubtebs, and 
fifteen thousand Bloodmen, and old Incredulity was 
again made general of the army." 

In this aspect of the age its tendencies are not always 
upward, nor its prospects encouraging, and we can 
understand the feeling which bids the Elis of our Israel 
" sit by the wayside, watching, for their hearts tremble 
for the ark of God." "We seem to be in the mysterious 
twilight of which the prophet speaks, " The light shall 
not be clear nor dark, but one day Jcnoum unto the Zord, 
not day nor night." Ah ! here is our consolation. It 
is " known unto the Lord ;" then our faith must not be 
weakened by distrust, nor our labor interrupted by fear. 
" It is known unto the Lord ;" and from the mount of 
Horeb he tells us that in the secret places of the heritage 
there are seven thousand that have not bowed the knee 
to Baal. It is " known unto the Lord ;" and while we 
pity the Prophet in the wilderness asking for a solitary 
death, death under a cloud, death in judgment, death in 
sorrow, he draws aside the veil, and shows us heaven 
preparing to do him honor, the celestial escort making 
ready to attend him, the horses being harnessed into the 
chariot of fire. 

Sirs, if there be this opposition, be it ours to " con- 
tend " the more " earnestly for the faith once delivered 
to the saints." Many are persuading us to give up and 
abandon our creeds. We ought rather to hold them 
with a firmer grasp, and infuse into them a holier life. 
We can imagine how the infidel would accost an intelli- 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 



337 



gent and hearty believer. "Be independent; don't 
continue any longer in leading strings, taking your faith 
from the ipse dixit of another ; use your senses, which 
are the only means of knowledge ; cast your confessions 
and rituals away; a strong man needs no crutches." 
And we can imagine the reply. " Brother, the simile 
is not a happy one — my creed is not a crutch — it is a 
highway thrown up by former travellers to the land 
that is afar off. f Other men have labored,' and of my 
own free will I i enter into their labor.' If thou art dis- 
posed to clear the path with thy own hatchet, with 
lurking serpents underneath and knotted branches over- 
head, God speed thee, my brother, for thy work is of 
the roughest, and while thou art resting — fatigued and 
' considering ' — thou mayest die before thou hast come 
upon the truth. I am grateful to the modern Macada- 
mizers who have toiled for the coming time. Commend 
me to the King's highway. I am not bound in it with 
fetters of iron. I can climb the hill for the sake of a 
wider landscape. I can cross the stile, that I may slake 
my thirst at the old moss-covered well in the field. I 
can saunter down the woodland glade, and gather the 
wild heart's-ease that peeps from among the tangled 
fern ; but I go back to the good old path where the pil- 
grim's tracks are visible, and, like the shining light, l it 
grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.' " 
Sirs, this is not the time for us to be done with creeds. 
They are,, in the various churches, their individual em- 
bodiments of what they believe to be truth, and their 

15 



338 THE PROPHET OF HOREE 



individual protests against what they deem to be error. 
" Give up our theology !" says Mr. James of Birming- 
ham; "then farewell to our piety. Give up our 
theology ! then dissolve our churches ; for our churches 
are founded upon truth. Give up our theology ! then 
next vote our Bibles to be myths. And this is clearly 
the aim of many, the destruction of all these together ; 
our piety, our churches, our Bibles." This testimony is 
true. There cannot be an attack upon the one without 
damage and mischief to the other. 

" Just as in old mythology, 

What time the woodman slew 
Each poet-worshipped forest-tree — 
He killed its Dryad too." 

So as the assault upon these expressions of Christianity 
is successful, the spiritual presence enshrined in them 
will languish and die. " Hold fast," then, " the form 
of sound words." Amid the war of sentiment and the 
jangling of false philosophy, though the sophist may 
denounce, and though the fool may laugh, let your 
high resolve go forth to the moral universe ; " I am 
determined to know nothing among men save Christ 
and him crucified." 

There is another matter to which, if you would suc- 
cessfully join in resistance to the works of evil, you must 
give earnest heed, and that is the desirableness, I had 
almost said the necessity — I will say it, for it is my 
solemn conviction, and why should it not be manfully 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 339 

out-spoken ? — the necessity of public dedication to the 
service of your Master — Christ. You will readily admit 
that confession is requisite for the completeness of 
discipleship ; and you cannot have forgotten how the 
Apostle has linked it to faith. " Confess with thy mouth, 
and believe with thine heart." To such confession, in 
the present day, at all events, church-fellowship is 
necessary. You cannot adequately make it in social 
intercoursej nor by a consistent example, nor even by a 
decorous attendance with outer-court worshippers. There 
must be public and solemn union with the Church of 
Christ. The influence of this avowed adhesion ought 
not to be forgotten. A solitary " witness " of obedience 
or faith is lost, like an invisible atom in the air ; it is 
the union of each particle, in itself insignificant, which 
makes up the " cloud of witnesses " which the world 
can see. Your own admirable Society exemplifies the 
advantage of association in benevolent and Christian 
enterprise, and the Churches of the land, maligned 
as they have been by infidel slanderers, and imper- 
fectly — very imperfectly — as they have borne witness 
for God, have yet been the great breakwaters against 
error and sin, the blest Elims to the desert wayfarer, 
the tower of strength in the days of siege and strife. 
Permit us to urge this matter upon you. Of course we 
do not pretend to specify — that were treason against 
the noble catholicity of this Society — though each of 
your lecturers has the Church of his intelligent pre- 
ference, and we are none of us ashamed of our own $ 



340 THE PROFHET OF HOREB, 

but we do mean to say, that you ought to join your- 
selves to that Church which appears to your prayerful 
judgment to be most in accordance with the New Testa- 
ment, there to render whatever you possess of talent, 
and influence, and labor. This is my testimony, sin- 
cerely and faithfully given ; and if, in its utterance, it 
shall, by God's blessing, recall one wanderer to alle- 
giance, or constrain one waverer to decision, it will not 
have been spoken in vain. 

Yet once more upon this head. There must be 
deeper piety, more influential and transforming godli- 
ness. An orthodox creed, valuable Church privileges — 
what are these without personal devotedness ? They 
must be faithful laborers — men of consecrated hearts — 
who are to do the work of the Lord. Believe me, the 
depth of apostolic piety, and the fervor of apostolic 
prayer, are required for the exigencies of the present 
and coming time. That Church of the future, which is 
to absorb into itself the regenerated race, must be a 
living and a holy Church. Scriptural principles must 
be enunciated by us all, with John the Baptist's fear- 
lessness, and with John the Evangelist's love. It is a 
mistake to suppose that fidelity and affection are 
unfriendly. The highest achievements in knowledge, 
the most splendid revelations of God, are reserved in his 
wisdom for the man of perfect love. Who but the 
beloved disciple could worm out of the Master's heart 
the foul betrayer's name ? Whose heart but his was 
large enough to hold the Apocalypse, which was flung 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 341 

into it in the island of Patmos % There must be this 
union of deepest faithfulness and deepest love to 
fit us for the coming age ; and to get it, we must 
just do as John did : we must lie upon the Master's 
bosom until the smile of the Master has burned out 
of our hearts all earthlier and coarser passion, and has 
chastened the bravery of the hero by the meekness of 
the child. 

The great lesson which is taught us in the Prophet's 
history, is that which was taught to him by the revelation 
on Horeb, that the Word is God's chosen instrumentality 
for the Church's progress ', and for the world's recovery. 
There were other lessons, doubtless, for his personal 
benefit. He had deserted its duty and was rebuked ; 
he had become impatient and exasperated, and was 
calmed down ; craven-hearted and unbelieving, he was 
fortified by the display of God's power ; dispirited and 
wishing angrily for death, he was consoled with 
promise, and prepared for future usefulness and duty. 
But the grand lesson of all was, that Jehovah, when he 
works, works not with the turbulence and passion of a 
man, but with the stillness and grandeur of a God. 
" He was not in the whirlwind, nor m the earthquake, 
nor in the fire, but in the still, small voice." And so it 
is still. " The whirlwind " of battle, " the earthquake " 
of political convulsion and change, " the fire " of the 
loftiest intellect, or of the most burning eloquence, are 
valueless to uplift and to regenerate the world. They 
may be, they very often are, the forerunners of the 



342 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

moral triumph, but God's power is in his Gospel, God's 
presence is in his Word. Here it is that we are at 
issue, at deep and deadly issue, with the pseudo-philoso- 
phers and benevolent " considerers " who profess to be 
toiling in the same cause as ourselves. They discrown 
Christ ; they ignore the influence of the Holy Spirit ; 
they proclaim the perfectibility of their nature in itself; 
they have superseded the Word as an instrument of 
progress ; and, of their own masonry, are piling up a 
tower, if haply it may reach unto heaven. This is the 
great problem of the age. Do not let us deceive our- 
selves. There are men, earnest, thoughtful, working, 
clever men, intent upon the question. Statesmanship 
has gathered up its political appliances ; civilization has 
exhibited her humanizing art ; philanthropy has reared 
educational, and mechanics', and all other sorts of insti- 
tutes ; amiable dreamers of the Pantheistic school have 
mapped out in cloud-land man's progress, from the 
transcendental up to the divine ; communism has flung 
over all the mantle of its apparent charity, in the folds 
of which it has darkly hidden the dagger of its terrible 
purpose — nay, every man, now-a-days, stands out a 
ready-made and self-confident artificer, each having a 
psalm, or a doctrine, or a theory, which is to recreate 
society and stir the pulses of the world. And yet the 
world is not regenerated, nor will it ever be, by such 
visionary projects as these. Call up History. She will 
bear impartial witness. She will tell you that, before 
Christ came with his Evangel of purity and freedom, 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 343 

the finer the culture, the baser the character ; that the 
untamed inhabitant of the old Hercynian Forest, and 
the Scythian and Slavonic tribes, who lived north of the 
Danube and the Rhine, destitute entirely of literary 
and artistic skill, were, in morals, far superior to the 
classic Greek and all-accomplished Roman. Call up 
Experience ; she shall speak on the matter. You have 
increased in knowledge ; have you, therefore, increased 
in piety ? You have acquired a keener aesthetic suscep- 
tibility ; have you gotten with it a keener relish for the 
spiritually true? Your mind has been led out into 
higher and yet higher education ; have you, by its nur- 
ture, been brought nearer to God ? Experience throws 
emphasis into the testimony of History, and both com- 
bine to assure us that there may be a sad divorce 
between Intellect and Piety, and that the training of 
the mind is not necessarily inclusive of the culture and 
discipline of the heart. Science may lead us to the 
loftiest heights which her inductive philosophy has 
scaled; art may suspend before us her beautiful crea- 
tions ; nature may rouse a " fine turbulence " in heroic 
souls ; the strength of the hills may nerve the patriot's 
arm, as the Swiss felt the inspiration of their mountains 
on the Mortgarten battle-field ; but they cannot, any or 
all of them, instate a man in sovereignty over his 
mastering corruptions, or invest a race with moral 
purity and power. If the grand old demon, who has 
the world so long in his thrall, is, by these means, ever 
disturbed in his possession, it is only that he may 



344 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

wander into desert places, and then return fresher for 
the exercise, and bringing seven of his kindred more 
inveterate and cruel. JSTo ! if the world is to be re- 
generated at all, it will be by the " still, small voice ;" 
that clear and marvellous whisper, which is heard high 
above the din of striving peoples, and the tumult of 
sentiment and passion ; which runs along the whole line 
of being, stretching its spiritual telegraph into every 
heart, that it may link them all with God. All human 
speculations have alloy about them ; that "Word is 
perfect. All human speculations fail ; that "Word 
abideth. The Jew hated it ; but it lived on, while the 
veil was torn away from the shrine which Shekinah had 
forsaken, and while Jerusalem itself was destroyed. 
The Greek derided it, but it has seen his philosophy 
effete, and his Acropolis in ruins. The Roman threw it 
to the flames, but it rose from its ashes, and swooped 
down upon the falling eagle. The reasoner cast it into 
the furnace, which his own malignity had heated 
" seven times hotter than its wont ;" but it came out 
without the smell of fire. The Papist fastened serpents 
around it to poison it, but it shook them off and felt no 
harm. The infidel cast it overboard in a tempest of 
sophistry and sarcasm, but it rode gallantly upon the 
crest of the proud waters ; and it is living still, yet 
heard in the loudest swelling of the storm ; it has been 
speaking all the while ; it is speaking now. The world 
gets higher at its every tone, and it shall ultimately 
speak in power, until it has spoken this dismantled 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 345 

planet up again into the smiling brotherhood of worlds 
which kept their first estate, and God, welcoming the 
prodigal, shall look at it as he did in the beginning, and 
pronounce it to be very good. 

It is as they abide by his Word, and guard sacredly 
this precious treasure, that nations stand or fall. The 
empires of old, where are they? Their power is 
dwarfed or gone. Their glory is only known by tradi- 
tion. Their deeds are only chronicled in song. But, 
amid surrounding ruin, the Ark of God blesses the 
house of Obed-Edom. We dwell not now on our 
national greatness. That is the orator's eulogy and the 
poet's theme. We remember our religious advantages 
— God recognized in our Senate, his name stamped on 
our currency, his blessing invoked upon our Queen, our 
Gospel ministry, our religious freedom, our unfettered 
privilege, our precious Sabbath, our unsealed, entire, 
wide-open Bible. "God hath not dealt with any nation 
as he hath dealt with us," and for this same purpose our 
possessions are extensive, and our privileges secure — 
that we may maintain among ourselves, and diffuse 
amid the peoples, the Gospel of the blessed God. Alas ! 
that our country has not been true to her responsibility, 
nor lavish of her strength for God. It would be well 
for us, and it is a startling alternative, if the curse of 
Meroz were our only heritage of wrath — if our only 
guilt were that we "came not up to the help of the 
Lord against the mighty." But we have not merely 

been indifferent' — we have been hostile. The cupidity 

15* 



346 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

of our merchants, the profligacy of our soldiers and 
sailors, the impiety of our travellers, have hindered the 
work of the Lord. Our Government has patronized 
paganism ; our soldiery have saluted an idol ; our 
cannon have roared in homage to a senseless stone — 
nay, we have even pandered to the prostitution of a 
continent, and to the murder of thousands of her sons, 
debauched and slain by the barbarities of their religion 
— and, less conscientious than the priests of old, we 
have flung into the national treasury the hire of that 
adultery and blood. Oh ! if the righteous God were to 
make inquisition for blood, upon the testimony of how 
many slaughtered witnesses might he convict pampered 
and lordly Britain ! There is need — strong need — for 
our national humiliation and prayer. He who girt us 
with power can dry up the sinews of our strength. 
Let but his anger be kindled by our repeated infideli- 
ties, and our country shall fall. More magnificent than 
Babylon in the profusion of her opulence, she shall be 
more sudden than Babylon in her ruin ; more renowned 
than Carthage for her military triumphs, shall be more 
desolate than Carthage in her mourning ; princelier 
than Tyre in her commercial greatness, shall be more 
signal than Tyre in her fall ; wider than Kome in her 
extent of territorial dominion, shall be more prostrate 
than Borne in her enslavement ; prouder than Greece 
in her eminence of intellectual culture, shall be more 
degraded than Greece in her darkening ; more exalted 
than Capernaum in the fullness of her religious privi 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 347 

lege, shall be more appalling than Capernaum in the 
deep damnations of her doom. 

Young men, it is for you to redeem your country 
from this terrible curse. " The holy seed shall be the 
substance thereof." As you, and those like you, are 
impure or holy, you may draw down the destruction, 
or conduct it harmlessly away. You cannot live to 
yourselves. Every word you utter makes its impres- 
sion ; every deed you do is fraught with influences — 
successive, concentric, imparted — which may be felt for 
ages. This is a terrible power which you have, and it 
clings to you ; you cannot shake it off. How will you 
exert it ? "We place two characters before you. Here 
is one — he is decided in his devotedness to God ; pains- 
taking in his search for truth; strong in benevolent 
purpose and holy endeavor ; wielding a blessed influ- 
ence ; failing oft, but ceasing never ; ripening with the 
lapse of years ; the spirit mounting upon the breath of 
its parting prayer ; the last enemy destroyed ; his 
memory green for ages ; and grateful thousands chisel- 
ling on his tomb: "He, being- dead, yet speaketh." 
There is another — he resists religious impressions ; out- 
grows the necessity for prayer ; forgets the lessons of 
his youth, and the admonitions of his godly home ; for- 
sakes the sanctuary; sits in the seat of the scorner; 
laughs at religion as a foolish dream ; influences many 
for evil ; runs to excess of wickedness ; sends, in some 
instances, his victims down before him ; is stricken with 
premature old age ; has hopeless prospects, and a ter- 



#48 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, 

rible leatli-bed; rots from the remembrance of his 
fellows; and angel-hands burning upon his gloomy 
sepulchre the epitaph of his blasted life : " And that 

MAN PERISHED NOT ALONE LN HIS INIQUITY." 

Young men, which will you choose? I affection- 
ately press this question. Oh, choose for God ! ■" Seek 
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and 
all things " — science, art, poetry, friendship — " shall be 
added unto you." I do unfeignedly rejoice that so 
goodly a number of you have already decided. 

I have only one fitness to address you — but it is one 
which many of your lecturers cannot claim — and that 
is, a fitness of sympathy. Your hopes are mine ; with 
your joys, at their keenest, I can sympathize. I have 
not forgotten the glad hours of opening morning, when 
the zephyr has a balmier breath, and through the 
richly-painted windows of the fancy, the sunlight 
streams in upon the soul. I come to you as one of 
yourselves. Take my counsel. " My heart's desire and 
prayer for you is that you may be saved." 

There is hope for the future. The world is moving 
on. The great and common mind of Humanity has 
caught the charm of hallowed Labor. "Worthy and toil- 
worn laborers fall ever and anon in the march, and 
their fellows weep their loss, and then, dashing away 
the tears which had blinded them, they struggle and 
labor on. There has been an upward spirit evoked, 
which men will not willingly let die. Young in its 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 349 

love of the beautiful, young in its quenchless thirst after 
the true, we see that buoyant presence : 

" In hand it bears, 'mid snow and ice, 
The banner with the strange device : 
Excelsior !" 

The one note of high music struck from the great harp 
of the world's heart-strings is graven on that banner. 
The student breathes it at his midnight lamp — the poet 
groans it forth in those spasms of his soul, when he can- 
not fling his heart's beauty upon language. Fair 
fingers have wrought in secret at that banner. Many a 
child of poverty has felt its motto in his soul, like the 
last vestige of lingering divinity. The Christian longs 
it when his faith, piercing the invisible, " desires a 
better country, that is, an heavenly." Excelsior! 
Excelsior ! Brothers, let us speed onward the youth 
who holds that banner. Up, up, brave spirit ! 

" Climb the steep and starry road 
To the Infinite's abode." 

Up, up, brave spirit ! Spire of Alpine steep and frown- 
ing brow, roaring blast and crashing flood, up ! Science 
has many a glowing secret to reveal thee ! Faith has 
many a Tabor-pleasure to inspire. Ha ! does the cloud 
stop thy progress ? Pierce through it to the sacred 
morning. Fear not to approach the divinity ; it is his 
own longing which impels thee. Thou art speeding to 



350 THE PROPHET OF HOREB, HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSuNS. 

thy coronation, brave spirit ! Up, up, brave spirit ! 
till, as thou pantest on the crest of thy loftiest achieve- 
ment, God's glory shall burst upon thy face, and God's 
voice, blessing thee from his throne, in tones of approval 
and of welcome, shall deliver thy guerdon : " I have 
made thee a little lower than the angels, and crowned 
thee with glory and honor !" 



THE END. 



Nov 



iseo. 



46 jfcrbg # |atboit'8 Jjablicafiottg. 

A most interesting Work. 



THE RIFLE, AXE, AND SADDLE-BAGS, 

A VOLUME OF LECTURES 
BY REV. WILLIAM HENRY aaCRJL, BTXEST 

One neat volume, 12mo. Price $1 UO. 



CONTENTS (IN PART). 
THE SYMBOLS OF EARLY WESTERN CHARACTER. 
The Untamed Wilderness — Daniel Boone — The Female Captive — .-**« 
Mysterious Shot — A Narrow Escape — A Backwoods Marriage — W$<Mlng 
Dinner and Dance — Homes in the Wilderness — Justice in the Backwooda 
Preachers in the Wilderness — The Preaeher's Dormitory — Henry Beidel- 
man Bascom — " Old Jimmy's " Reproofs — The Pioneer's Work. 

THE TRIUMPHS OF GENIUS OYER BLINDNESS. 

Beauty and Effects of Light — Eminent Blind Men — Remarkable Sense 
of Hearing — John Milton— Premonitions of Blindness — Blindness an Im- 
pediment to Oratory — Sympathy Necessary to the Speaker — The other 
Senses Quickened — The Blind Man's Need is his Gain — " I am Old and 
Blind." 

AN HOUR'S TALK ABOUT WOMAN. 

The Moral Greater than the Intellectual — John Howard the Philanthro- 
pist — Ancient and Modern Women — Frivolity a Prevailing Evil — Earnest- 
ness of Female Authors — Women the Best Literary Instructors — Woman's 
Responsibility — The Power of Sympathy — The Importance of Conversa- 
tion — Woman the True Reformer. 

EARLY DISCOVERIES IN THE SOUTHWEST. 

Exploration of the Mississippi-^-Gold Unsuccessfully Sought — Collisions 
with the Indians — Attack upon the Chickasaws — Historical Traditions- 
Incidents of Forest Life — Dispersion of the Settlers Anglo-Saxon Su- 
premacy. 

Address, 

DERBY & JACKSON, Publishers, 

119 Nassau street, ST. Y. 



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41 



" To the list of John Milton and other 'blind men eloquent,' must be added tl* name of Williaj 
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AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DEE? INTEREST ! 

For Sale by Booksellers, Preachers, Colporteurs, and Book Agentt 
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TEN TEARS OF PREACHER LIFE; 

OR, CHAPTERS FROM AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
BY WILLIAM HENRY MILBURN 

AUTHOR OF U THE BIFLB AXE, AND SADDLE-BAGS." 



One neat 12mo. volume. Price, One Dollar. 

" There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 

To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and tho freshness of a dream." 



LIST OP THE CONTENTS (IN PAKT). 



Early Reminiscence. The Accident. 

The Sick Chamber. Surgical Consultation. 

Two Years' Imprisonment. 

Land of the Setting Sun. 

" There were Giants in those days." 

The Backwoods Preacher. 

The Saddle-bags taken up. 

Let no Man Despise thy Youth. 

A Western Wedding. 

A Western Camp-Meeting. 

An Exhorter in a Dilemma. 

Liberality of Methodists. 

The Last Scene of Conference. 

Walking the Hospital. 

Cry Aloud and Spare not. A Sermon on 

Deck. 
Its unexpected Rewards. 
Heavy Purse and Congressional Chaplain. 
Necessities for Extempore Speaking. 
A Stump Speech Described. 
Value of the Eye in an Orator. 
Congress and two of its Young Men. 
Congressional Eloquence. 
Stephen A. Douglas. 
Alexander H. Stephens. 
Entering the Senate Chamber. 
Memories of the Great Departed. 
Author's First Prayer in Congress. 



Henry Clay. John C. Calhoun. Daniel 
Webster. 

Social Life in Washington. 

Attractions of the Capital. 

Power of Memory. Influence of Women. 

A Death-bed Summons. Marriage of the 
Author. 

Chicago in 1841, 1846, and 1865. 

A Night Ride in a Deluge. Narrow Escape. 

The Dying Preacher. 

Grace in " Spots." Life on Wheels. 

Life on the Mississippi. A Boat Race. 

Passengers excited. S. S. Prentiss. 

Phelps the Desperado. Riding the Circuit. 

Sojourn in New Orleans. 

Alabama Scenery. A Southern Home. 

Tribute to the South. 

Author Charged with Heresy. 

Stage Coach Dialogue. A Fearful Spectacle. 

Strange Superstition. The Anxious Mo- 
ment. 

Homage to Ladies. Southern Hospitality, 

Southern Matron. Southern Literature. 

Old Friends and Pleasant Faces. 

The Pioneer Preacher. Western Cookery. 

A Night Scene in a Village Store. 

Indisposition of the Author. 

Returns to New York. The Infant's Cry. 



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48 §*rbg & laclisow's ^ublitattous. 

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"To Messrs. Derby & Jackson: 

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ever published by a Southern writer. To my mind, no American authoress has ever 
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in the vivid portraiture of the doubts, the conflicts, the yearnings and the final triumph 
of a great soul seeking for truth. If the public can appreciate a thoroughly good work, 
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From Rev. Wm. IT. Milburn (the Blind Preacher Eloquent). 

" I have no hesitation in saying that few books have ever interested me more. The 
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our country can boast, and we do not remember any work of fiction which has been 
produced in this country for years, which is written with more power and is more full of 
promise than 'Beulah.' She has achieved a decided literary success, a success which 
will at least be as cordially recognized at the North as at the South." 

From the Boston Post. 

" * Beulah ' is a book of great merit, and one which will bear critical and close inspec- 
tion. * * * The volume is one deserving the attraction of the reading public. It 
te healthy in sentiment, pure in its influences, and grand in its treatment of great 
9ioml questions. As a literary work, ' Beulah ' will rank with any issue of the day." 

*** The above will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price 

W. H TrssoN, Printer and Stereotypy, 43 4 45 Centre St., N. V 



§erbg t£ fackson's publications. 



3J 



DERBY & JACKSON'S 

STANMKD BRITISH CLASSICS. 

IN FIFTY VOLUMES, COMPRISING: 

BOSWELL'S JOHNSON, Four Volumes. 

ADDISON'S WORKS, Six Volumes. 

GOLDSMITH'S WORKS, Four Volumes. 

FIELDING'S WORKS, Four Volumes. 

SMOLLETT'S WORKS, Six Volumes 

STERNE'S WORKS, Two Volumes. 

DEAN SWIFT'S WORKS, Six Volumes. 

JOHNSON'S WORKS, Two Volumes. 

DEFOE'S WORKS, Two Volumes 

LAMB'S WORKS, Five Volumes 

HAZLITT'S WORKS, Five Volumes 

LEIGH HUNT'S WORKS, Four Volumes. 

Pronounced the most valuable and handsome set of books ever intra 
tfuced into the American market. Fut up in two elegant cases, bound ia 
half calf antique, or half calf gilt. Price $2 25 per volume, or, per set, 
$112 50. 

We also have the same works, bound in neat cloth, for $1 25 per 
volnme ; or sheep, library style for $1 50 per vol. 

* A * Either or all of the above will be sent by mail, post-paid, or 
reoeipt of price. 

W H. Tiimok, Printer ami Stamotroer 48 & 4* Oentre St., «. Y. 



38 JUrbg # facksou's publications. 



BOOKS WEITTEN BY A. S. ROE. 



There is no writer of the present day who excels this charming author 
in the natural and home-like simplicity of his style, and the natural inte- 
rest and truthfulness of his narrative. In thousands of families and Sab- 
bath Schools his books are read and re-read with ever-increasing delight. 
The young and old, the quiet and gay, are alike fascinated by his pages. 
Rival editions of all his books have been published in England, edited by 
the Rev. Dr. Taylor, where they have already reached the enormous sale 
of 120,000 volumes — a sure indication that his pen is one whose "touch 
of nature makes the whole world kin." 

IV'E BEEN THINKING ; or, The Secret of Success. 12mo., clo., §1 00 
TO LOVE AND TO BE LOVED ; or, Strive and Win. 12mo., clo., . 1 25 
A LONG LOOK AHEAD ; or, The First Stroke and the Last. 12mo, clo., 1 25 
THE STAR AND THE CLOUD ; or, A Daughter's Love. 12mo., clo., 1 25 
TRUE TO THE LAST ; or, Alone, on a Wide, Wide Sea. 12mo., clo., 1 25 
HOW COULD HE HELP IT 1 or* The Heart Triumphant. 12mo., clo., 1 25 

From the London Critic. 

" Mr. Roe is one of the most successful of American writers. He has 
originality of thought, and natural powers of invention." 

From the New York Christian Intelligencer. 

" Mr. Roe evidently knows how to touch the heart-strings ; indeed, he 
sweeps them with a master's hand. At one time we find it impossible to 
restrain a gushing tear ; at another every risible nerve is in full exercise." 

From tlie United States Magazine. 

" Hogarth not more surely touches life with his wizard spell. It is 
transfixed and permanent. ' A Long Look Ahead ' is the crystallization 
of his genius, and, like Goldsmith's ' Vicar of Wakefield,' should be placed 
upon the shelf to show what American views and manners reveal, just a? 
that simple tale tells of what comes from English institutions. He is an 
American truly and heartily : American in thought and feeling, American 
in tone and language. His books will live as graphic pictures of the times 
he delineates. Rather of the old school in Church and social privileges, 
he is sufficiently universal to make his delineation national. There is 
about him a complacency, a wholesome cheerfulness, a fertility of resource, 
a hopefulness, a glow and persistency wholly Yankee." 

%* The above will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of pric« 



GOOD AND POPULAR BOOKS, 

PUBLISHED BY DERBY & JACKSON. 

TEN YEARS OF PREACHER LIFE. By Rev. W. H. Milbubn. 12mo. $1 01 

RIFLE, AXE AND SADDLEBAGS. " u " 12mo. 1 00 

GREECE AND TEE GOLDEN HORN. By Rev. Stephen Olin. 12mo. 106 

TRA VEL8 IN EG TPT AND THE HOL Y LAND. By Stephens. 8vo. 2 00 

CAPTAIN CO OK'S VO YA GES R UND THE WORLD. 12mo 1 00 

PICTORIAL LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRA NKLIN. 8vo 2 00 

RANDALL'S LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. 8 vols. 8vo 7 50 

BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 12mo 1 00 

BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR. 12mo 100 

FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS. 12mo 100 

DODDRIDGE'S RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION. 19mo. ... 1 00 

BAXTER'S SAINTS' REST. 12mo 1 00 

TAYLOR'S HOLY LIVING. 12mo " V 

THE SCO TTISH CHIEFS. By Jane Porter. 12mo *> 

THADDEUS OF WARSAW. « " 12mo 100 

ADVENTURES OF DON QUIXOTE. 12mo 100 

ARABIAN NIGHTS ' EN TER TAINMENTS 12mo 1 00 

AD VENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 12mo 1 00 

SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. 12mo 100 

AESOP'S FABLES, with the Morals attached. 12mo 1 00 

VICAR OF WAKEFIELD and RASSELAS. (Two in one.) 1 00 

PAUL AND VIRGINIA and EXILES OF SIBERIA. (Two in one.).. 1 00 

RELIGIO US CO UR TSHIP and GREA T PLA G UE. By De Foe. ... 1 00 

C(ELEBS IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. 12mo 1 * 

HANNAH MORE'S TALES AND A LLEGORIES. 12mo 1 Oi 

THO UGHTS AND ESS A YS OF JOHN FORSTER. 12mo 1 0C 

THE ESSA YS OF ELI A. By Charles Lamb. 12mo 1 00 

JOHNSONS LIVES OF THE POETS. 2 vols. 12mo 2 50 

THE SPECTA TOR. By Joseph Addison. 2 vols. 12mo 2 50 

THE TA TTLER AND G UARDIAN. By Addison and Steele 8 00 

WIRT'S LIFE OF PATRICK HENRY. 12mo 100 

SIMMS' LIFE OF GENERAL MARION. 12mo 1 00 

WALKER'S LIFE OF GENERAL J A CKSON. 12mo 1 00 

LIFE AND CHOICE WORKS OF ISAA C WA TTS. 12mo 1 25 

LA YARD'S POP ULAR DISCO VERIES A T NINE VEH. 12mo 1 00 

FROST'S INDIAN BA TTLES AND CAPTIVITIES. 12mo 1 00 

WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 4 vols. 12mo 5 00 

WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB. 5 vols. 12mo « 25 

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 4 vols. 12mo 5 00 

ROLLINS ANCIENT HISTORY. 2 vols. 8vo 4 00 

PL UTARCH'S LIVES OF THE ANCIENTS. 8vo 2 (HI 

Either of the above sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of Price. A 
Hberal Discount to Preachers and Agents. Address 

DERBY & JACKSON, 

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